Flight of a Broken Mockingjay
by EvanescingSky
Summary: Chrissy, a troubled tribute from District 9, must face off against Snow's horrible tortures and ultimately come face to face with her own internal demons. Story of the 55th Hunger Games. Yes, Haymitch and Effie will be there.
1. The First Agony

Chrissy lay in bed, too sick to move. Today was the reaping.

"What if my name's called? What if my name's picked?" she'd asked in a slurred voice of her mother this morning. But the doctor had declared her immobile. Some sort of fever that made her hallucinate and vomit and gave her the worst chills she'd ever had. Even when conscious she was barely able to communicate. Not that she was making any considerable effort to recover. Here she was safe from all that was real. Here her father couldn't lay a hand on her. And she got to miss school… So she lies there in a stupor while the footsteps of her family sound downstairs, then the shutting of the door and then silence. Chrissy usually likes it quiet. But today, even in her confused, addle-brained state, a knot of apprehension twists in her belly. She tries to remember why the reaping was bad. What happened there? People died…children were hurt…games…games were fun…she couldn't remember the last time she'd played a game…she gives up and drifts off into a daydream.

Normally, the footsteps would have told her what had happened. Normally, she would have been able to tell something was wrong by the aura of her family. But this wasn't a normal day. Her mother comes in, stony-faced and silent. She stands at the other side of Chrissy's room for a long time. At last she says, in a voice devoid of emotion, "Farah's name was drawn in the reaping."

This takes the better part of 15 minutes to register. Farah…who was she? Oh, yes, Chrissy's little sister. How old was she? Oh, right, 12. The reaping? Oh, for the Games. What was going to happen to Farah? Oh, of course, she was going to die.

Chrissy screams. She screams and screams and screams and then her mother is screaming at her to shut up and her father is swearing downstairs and Cooper and Lisa are sobbing down the hall and then Chrissy passes out and her mother stops shouting and goes down to talk to her father who stops swearing and then all that can be heard is Cooper and Lisa sobbing.

When Chrissy wakes up, it's silent again. Of course. Her family isn't back from the reaping! She had fallen asleep and _dreamed _that her precious little sister had been drawn to be the female tribute for District 9. Of course. A few hours pass in idleness. Chrissy sleeps and dreams and thinks. The doctor comes in to give her a shot of medicine that just arrived from the Capitol. He sits on the side of her bed to give her the shot. After, he looks into her forest green eyes, his own pale blue ones dark with grief.

"I'm so sorry," he says.

Chrissy's confused. Sorry for what? That she's sick? It's not his fault. He covers his face with a hand and then hurries off, leaving Chrissy with her muddled thoughts.

Days pass as the shot works away. Chrissy feels better every day, though she's not always sure this is a good thing. Being healthy is dangerous. Her mother comes in every so often with a tray of food and plunks it down with no expression. Chrissy's rebuffed by this coldness, but she writes it down as some fight between her mother and father, not that she can really imagine her mother ever standing up to her imposing father. A little less than a week later, Chrissy's thinking mostly clearly and decides to get up. She stumbles into the bathroom, her feet clumsy with lack of use and turns on the shower. The water is freezing, but she doesn't mind. It feels good, like it's cutting through the fog of sickness she's been in; it's clearing her mind. She towels off and looks at herself in the mirror. Even Chrissy has to admit she's odd looking. Dark tan skin, naturally bleach-blonde hair and eyes so dark green they're almost black. She's not particularly beautiful, but she does have a presence. An aura, if you will. Like she could kick your ass. And she probably could. And even if she couldn't, she'd psyche you out so hard you'd forget and lose anyway. She brushes out her hair, changes into her dark jeans and tight black t-shirt and heads downstairs. Everyone stares at her as she walks casually past them in the living room into the kitchen to get some water. She comes into the living room and sits in the ancient armchair next to the decrepit old couch. The Hunger Games are on. Of course.

"Have I missed our float?" she asks, remembering she doesn't know who the tributes are. Her family is still staring at her in disbelief, and she's starting to feel ill at ease. "What?"

"You are unbelievable," Lisa says.

"What?" Chrissy presses.

"Farah's on that float!" Lisa shouts, leaping to her feet. "Our sister is going to be slaughtered and all you can say is '_Did I miss our float?_'? You heartless bitch!"

"Lisa!" Chrissy's mother reprimands. Lisa scowls fiercely at Chrissy and storms out, tears blossoming in her eyes after she's turned.

"Farah wasn't chosen!" Chrissy calls, unnerved. Hearing her 10 year old sister cuss at her would normally mean Chrissy would put her on dish duty for a week and talk to her about her language, but something else is at work here. She turns to look to her mother, who's silently weeping and Lisa's twin brother Cooper who won't meet her eyes and her father who's looking at the television.

"She wasn't…was she? That was a dream, right? A hallucination? Part of my sickness?"

Chrissy's mother lets out a loud sob and covers her face. Her father turns to her with his usual look of anger.

"Yes, Farah's name was pulled at the reaping. She's competing in the Fifty-second Hunger Games. She's going to die."

_No. No, they're lying._

"You're lying!" Chrissy screams, jumping up. "You're all liars!" She turns to run from the room.

"Chrissy!" her father booms, "Get back here now! You don't get to speak to me that way!"

Chrissy turns back, fear gathering in her throat. She shoves it down under her anger. "Then don't say a thing like Farah's going to die!" Chrissy shrieks.

She turns to run again, and her father grabs her arm. She jerks away violently and then freezes. She looks back at her father who has a look of stunned fury growing on his face. He lifts the arm he used to grab her and strikes her across the face, hard enough to knock her to the ground. Her mother let out a strangled cry.

"Stop, Leo, please, leave her alone!" she whimpers while Chrissy touches the weal forming on her cheek. "She's still sick."

"Shut up, Mary," her father snarls. "This is my goddamn house and no snot-nosed teenage brat is going to tell me what to do or say."

Cooper has buried his face in a pillow, afraid to leave and afraid to stay. Her mother puts a hand on his back while their father stalks away, leaving Chrissy on the ground.


	2. A Promise of Revenge

Several minutes later, she gets to her feet and runs to the door, taking the front steps two at a time. Her mind is perfectly clear now, the shock of the slap driving the last of the incoherent drabble from her brain. She runs down the dirt path leading to town, and then changes her mind. The last thing she wants is people. Staring. Gossiping. _There goes Chrissy. The girl who didn't take her sister's place. Who let her sister be dragged off to slaughter like an animal. _

She runs down to Victor's Village, going through the backyards of the houses. Since the Hunger Games began, District 9 has had 13 victors, 4 of which are still alive. She purposefully avoids those houses and sits down beside the last one in a row, looking at the fence.

Now she lets herself feel. She's so overwhelmed by feelings; she doesn't know what to feel first. Grief, obviously. Crushing sorrow. Her sister was going to die at 12 years old. Guilt. She wasn't there to take Farah's place. Anger. The Hunger Games were so unfair! Fear. Her father wasn't going to be in a better mood when she got home. At first she thought she'd cry, but she didn't care for crying and after meditating on her feelings for a while, nausea begins to rise in her and she leans over and throws up all over the nicely cut lawn. She feels a hand touch her shoulder, offering her a bottle. She spins around and sees Yeoman; a morphling addict who won the games…what was it? Ten years ago? Something like that. He offers her the bottle again. She takes it and drinks, somewhat dubiously, only to nearly choke at the taste. She's not sure what it is, but it's not much better than vomit. Even so, she thanks him coldly before rising to her feet. He gestures for her to follow, and she does so reluctantly. She's not going back home, and if he causes trouble, she has a knife stowed in her boot.

He leads her to what she assumes to be his house in the Village. When she enters, she can see needles, syringes and bottles of unknown fluids lying all over and she cringes. He makes a sweeping motion, inviting her to look around and then disappears into the kitchen. Yeoman had his vocal cords cut in the Games. They fixed it up at the Capitol, but he hasn't spoken since. They say it's more to do with the trauma of the Games than the wound he received. Chrissy looks around downstairs, finds nothing of interest and heads upstairs. She looks into all the rooms and enters a study-like area. She looks through the books there and examines the desk. There's a small drawer which she opens and inside is one small book with a plain black cover. She opens it and the first photo is of a young woman with flaming red hair sitting under a tree reading. The next one she's looking at the camera, smiling sweetly. She's there on the third page, doing the dishes. And there she is with Yeoman sitting on a park bench. Chrissy's suddenly aware of Yeoman behind her. She turns, prepared for him to be angry and says, before he can say anything, "Is this your wife?"

Yeoman doesn't look angry, but a deep sadness shows itself on his face at her question. He shakes his head.

"Sister?"

Another shake.

"Girlfriend?"

He nods.

"Did she die in childbirth?"

Shake.

Chrissy thinks for a long moment.

"Morphling overdose?"

A nod. Ouch.

"I'm sorry." Chrissy's apology is marred by her flat, distant tone. It's the tone she uses all the time, with everyone. It's the only way to stop everyone from seeing how she really feels.

Yeoman looks away. He offers her some bread and steps aside, clearly wanting her out of the study. She takes the bread and complies, going back downstairs. Yeoman serves her lunch and they don't talk. Neither of them seem inclined to it. Afterwards, Chrissy stand and says, "Thank you. It was delicious."

She turns to leave, before she's washed up in another wave of emotion over the Hunger Games. But before she can take her hand off the back of the chair where it rests, Yeoman puts his hand on top of hers. His grass-green eyes burn into hers, trying to tell her something. _It's okay to show emotion. Don't bottle it up inside. Let someone in. _Chrissy shakes it off and strides out the door. She doesn't need a friend. She doesn't need anyone, or anything, except to get revenge for Farah.


	3. The Second Reaping

That was three years ago. Chrissy has changed a lot since then. Where before she was distant, now she's cold. Where before she was confidant, she's arrogant. Where she was a thinker, she's calculating and cunning. When she attends the reaping for the Fifty-fifth Hunger Games, she stands as a stone statue with the other seventeen year olds. Trisha Keru, their announcer, strides forward to pull the names from the bowls.

Chrissy has signed up for tesserae for every member of her family and some of the poorer families too, saving their children from the extra name slips. They all think she's crazy. But Chrissy knows better. She has a plan. More of a plan than she had when she ran away from home two years ago. Now she sleeps on Yeoman's couch when she needs to sleep, a knife always within reach. She's been training. She wants her name pulled and for the past three years it's been denied her. Now as Trisha pulls the slip of paper and reads, "Chrissy van Pelt," and all eyes turn to her, Chrissy shows no emotion. She merely walks up to the stage, as if she had expected this all along and stands there to meet Kayanna and Jamir, her mentors for the Hunger Games.

The next name pulled is Lee Jin. She doesn't know him well. Good. As always, Trisha ends her speech with, "And may the odds be _ever_ in your favor."

Her family doesn't come to say good-bye. This hurts Chrissy more than she'd care to admit. Not her mother and father, who she'd written off long ago, but Lisa and Cooper. They're in the running for the Games now, and as cold as she acted, she really did love them, and did her best to protect them. But she sits absolutely still, like a soldier. When Trisha comes to collect her and Lee, to take them to the train, she doesn't say a word. The absence of visitors says all of it for her.

Chrissy inspects her room and as she looks around, feels a pang of fear for the first time. _What if_- she cuts the thought off before it can progress. There is no place for fear in the Games. She brushes her hair out real fast, she's kept it short in preparation for this, so the light curls come down to just brush the nape of her neck. She tugs at the locks that cover her forehead. She needs to cut those before the Games, she doesn't want them growing out and getting in her eyes. She looks fully in the mirror and what she sees is foreign to her: A teenage soldier, rigid in posture, dressed in plain, functional clothes. Icy hard eyes, no real expression. No frills, no indulgences. Not what you'd expect to see when you look at a seventeen year old girl. For just a flash, this disturbs her, the way she's let the Capitol's Games change her before she even competes. But she pushes this away too; she can worry about her self-image after she gets revenge. With that in mind, she heads down to the dining car.

Everyone's there when she arrives, and there's some light conversation going around, but it stops when she enters the car, bringing her aura of death. She sits down, comfortable with the other's awkward silence and fills her plate. Here's her chance to bulk up before the killing begins.

"So, we were just talking about how to present you two for the parade…we were thinking maybe we could go with a team thing…" Trisha trails off at Chrissy's expression.

"Not a chance. I work alone. That's all there is to it," Chrissy says with finality


	4. Studying

Trisha nods and leads her to another car, showing her a TV and many boxes of tapes. Chrissy gives a curt nod of thanks and Trisha leaves. Chrissy sorts out the two Quarter Quell tapes and then a few where District 9 won and a few where Careers won and sat down for a long night of studying.

She watches the first-ever Quarter Quell first, in which the children chosen were voted for, to remind the Districts the deaths were their fault for choosing to start an uprising. She scans for anything useful and makes some mental notes. She skips around to the deaths and some Gamemaker-induced traps and then shuts it off. She tosses that one aside and puts in the other Quarter Quell tape, from just five years ago. The year District 12 finally had a winner. She watches and was fascinated by the arena. Everything was deadly…she'll need to keep that in mind. Don't trust wildlife. Haymitch, however, the winner, she finds unbearable. He was snarky and arrogant and she thought if she ever really met him, she's stick her sword through his foot just to shut him up.

"Studying?" Lee's soft voice interrupts her thoughts. She turns around to see the fourteen-year-old standing behind her, an unreadable look in his chocolate brown eyes.

"Yeah. I'm going to be prepared when I go into the arena."

Lee looks at her for a long time and then turns to leave.

"Chrissy," he says suddenly, on impulse, "Don't let the Capitol change you."

"It's too late for that," Chrissy replies simply, and returns her attention to the television.

"So, what do you think of the Capitol?" Trisha's voice rings with pride as she looks out over the plastic-looking city. The appalled look of disgust and condescending hatred Chrissy gives her shuts her up. The whole city looks fake and Chrissy feels bile rise in her throat at the sight of these indulgent, selfish…she can't even think of a word bad enough for them. She's whisked off to be dealt with by her prep team. They must give their names, but Chrissy doesn't care to listen. It's only when a man with scarlet skin and orange hair tells her to strip that she starts to listen.

"What? I'm not stripping! You guys are nuts!"

A woman with whiskers and cat ears on top of her head sighs impatiently. "You _have_ to! How else can we fix you?"

"Uh-uh," Chrissy says, backing away. "Not gonna happen."

The man with blue hair and eyebrows grabs her from behind. "It's not so bad!" he tries to comfort her.

Chrissy kicks him in the shins and he drops her. She takes off like an animal spared the slaughter house. Flame-hair chases after her and finally manages to catch her at the end of the hall when the elevator didn't come fast enough. He plunges a syringe into her arm and she shrieks.

"Hey! This is-" Chrissy doesn't finish because at that moment, her eyes roll back in her head and she collapses on the ground, out cold, allowing her prep team to work on her with no interferences.


	5. Arrivals and First Impressions

Chrissy wakes up, rubbing her head and sees a slight woman with bright yellow skin and turquoise eyes sitting across from her. She sits bolt upright, her hand flying to grab the knife stowed in her boot…where's her boot? Where are her clothes? She's lying on a couch, loosely wrapped in a paper robe.

"Who are you?" she barks at the woman.

"I'm Xenia, your stylist," the woman says.

Chrissy pulls the robe further around her, only succeeding in tearing it. She curses softly and looks back and Xenia. "You're not going to drug me are you?" she asks suspiciously.

"Not if you do as I ask," Xenia says.

The thought of obeying anyone from the Capitol makes fire burn in Chrissy's veins, but she keeps her mouth shut. She doesn't want another dose of…whatever that was.

Xenia brings out her outfit for the parade. A pleated short brown skirt, a camouflage green shirt with short sleeves, a thick brown belt, a bow and quiver on her back, to represent the hunting District. There's a pair of laced brown boots as well and she finds her knife there. All in all, she likes the outfit, and it could have been a lot worse. Xenia helps her put it on and when she looks in the mirror, she sees a huntress. Wild. Dangerous. Fierce. She likes this. Her prep team left her hair alone, so the curls fall askew about her face, giving her a feral look, in addition to the natural burning intensity of her eyes.

"Perfect," Xenia whispers.

On the float, Chrissy stands cold and aloof. She doesn't wave, or smile, the way Lee does. She looks straight ahead and thinks about how she's going to win. The people are cheering and screaming for their favorite floats and the noise is grating against Chrissy's nerves. She wishes they'd shut up. She doesn't even notice the other tribute's floats or costumes. She has a single-minded goal which consumes her every thought, and has for the past three years. Now, so close to achieving it, it is like a firebrand on her brain, driving every other idea from her head.

Later, at dinner, Trisha tries to make some small talk by complimenting Lee on his performance. "You'll get plenty of sponsors," she says encouragingly, "People loved you!"

"I had a good costume," Lee says in his quiet voice, looking at his plate.

"Yes, well the costume can only do so much," Trisha says dismissively, earning herself a scowl from Xenia and Lee's stylist.

Chrissy finishes her lamb stew and then stands and exits. If she hears one more person try to give Lee false hope, she's going to lose it. She walks aimlessly around the 9th floor for a while and then finds a nondescript door, slightly open. _What could happen?_ She thinks to herself. They can't punish her any more than sending her to the Hunger Games. She goes up a narrow, concrete stairway and finds herself on the roof. For a moment, her attention is captivated by the flashing lights all around the city. Then she remembers the door was ajar when she went through. Someone else is probably up here. She creeps around some skylights and air ducts, keeping her ears pricked for any human sounds. She looks around and sees a bottle lying on the rooftop. She goes over to inspect it, rolling it over with her foot.

"Looks like one of the trainees got away," says a mocking voice behind her.

She spins around; knife in hand and the person throws his hands up to deflect the blow. Instead of hitting flesh, she knocks another bottle from his hands and it shatters on the blackness of the rooftop. The smell of beer is unmistakable now.

"Hey, watch it little sister," the guy says casually. He seems to be several years older than herself, in his early twenties maybe. One of his arms ends in a stump.

"What are you doing up here?" she snaps.

"I could ask you the same question. A slight little thing like you, out here on the roof? It's dangerous you know. You could fall off the edge."

Chrissy snorts. She walks over to the edge and the guy follows her. "Dangerous like this?" she says, and then she jumps off the edge.


	6. Analyzing the Competition

_Forgot about the force field much?_

"Hey!" the guy yelps. "Oh, shit!"

He's about to run downstairs and see if he can scrap her mangled body off the sidewalk before District 9 realizes their tribute was missing when she comes sailing back over the edge and lands gracefully on the roof on her feet.

"Man, are you nuts?" the guy yells.

"No. But you're drunk."

"Jeez." The guy rubs his temple. "Why do I always end up hanging with the crazy ones?" he seems to be talking to himself.

"Who are you, anyway?" Chrissy asks.

"I'm Chaff. From District 11."

"Right. I saw your tape," she says, nodding. Chaff grunts and takes another swig from a spare beer bottle in his pocket. "Who are you?"

"None of your business."

"Well aren't you a nice little girl?" he snorts.

"I'm seventeen. I'm not little, and I'm definitely not nice. No one wins the Hunger Games by being nice," Chrissy says, insulted.

"You really plan on winning?" Chaff says, looking amused.

"I do," Chrissy says icily.

"Well ain't that something. I gotta tell Haymitch that one. Tiny little blonde girl from nine thinks she's gonna win the Hunger Games."

Chrissy scowls fiercely. "Why don't you go get another beer?" she says scathingly.

"Oh yeah, I gotta tell Haymitch about this one."

Chrissy glares daggers at Chaff. "I have to get some sleep for training tomorrow." She spins on her heel and walks brusquely back to the stairs.

"Have a nice night, little sister!" Chaff calls after her.

His drunken laughter fills the air as Chrissy slams shut the door to the staircase. What a loser. A worm of anxiety works its' way into her mind, though. She'd hoped that the nightmares that plagued her on a bi-weekly basis at home wouldn't worry her here. Perhaps she was wrong…

The next morning, Chrissy wakes up, having taken some sleeping pills after the first few hours of sleepless screams. She takes a quick shower and puts the skirt and shirt from yesterday's costume. She laces up her boots and stows her knife inside. Then she heads down to the training center. Trisha is waiting outside with Lee.

"Remember, today is an ideal opportunity to scope out allies," she reminds them.

Chrissy doesn't bother to remind her that she operates alone. She strolls into the training center and over to the first station she sees. Tributes from 1, 3,6, 11 and 10 are already there. Chrissy learns some knots, because, hey, you never know. By the time she's done with that, the rest of the tributes have arrived. She learns about edible plants as well, and then practices her sword fighting, which is her main fighting strategy. She slashes and whirls and reduces the training dummies to fluff without breaking a sweat. It's silent in the room, all eyes are on her. She gives them all a fierce scowl and a look that says 'Touch me if you dare' and then sheaths her sword and plunks down at the camouflage station. Activity resumes, and within moments three Career tributes have joined her.

"You're pretty good with that sword," comments a golden-haired girl from District 1.

"Yeah, you should stick with us," says a brown-haired, blue-eyed, stocky boy from 4.

"Thanks, but no thanks," Chrissy says frigidly, eyeing the District 1 girl in particular. "I fight alone."

The Careers look shocked that she'd turn down their protection.

"Fine," says the girl from 1 nastily, "But if you're not with us, you're against us, and we will take you down, sword-girl."

"I'll take my chances," Chrissy says with cool casualness, not looking up from where she's begun to make her face blend in with a tree.

1 hisses, clearly incandescent with fury and strides away with her pack following her. Chrissy flips her off when she turns around. The girl's face turns purple with rage and Chrissy knows she's going to be 1's main target during the Games. But she doesn't feel afraid. _Bring it on. I'll kick your ass from here to District 13, goldilocks._


	7. Arrogance and Contemplations

Before performing for the Gamemakers later that day, Chrissy has earned a new nickname. Sword Queen. Not very creative, but she could think of a whole lot of worse things to be called. When the Gamemakers call her name, Chrissy strides in, confident in her ability to wow the judges. She grabs a bundle of knives from one station and then begins to throw them at the new dummies. She ducks and rolls as if avoiding attack and nails the dummies in the forehead, heard, throat and gut. She rises to her feet and pulls out her sword to repeat her performance from earlier that day. But the Gamemakers stop her.

"That's enough, tribute Chrissy. You may go."

She hisses at the Gamemakers and turns on her heel, swiftly walking back out before she can say something that will really get her in trouble.

Xenia, Lee and their mentors are at dinner. As Trisha sits down, she turns on the TV to see what the scores are. 1, 2 and 4 predictably score in the 9-10 range and other than that there's not much notable, aside from a tiny tribute from 3 who earned a one. Lee gets a 6. Chrissy gets an 11. Everyone looks at her.

"I guess that would explain why everyone and their brother wants you as their teammate," says Trisha slowly. "Aside from the Careers…"

"I don't want allies," Chrissy says shortly.

"Surely you don't expect to fight out the whole Games alone, do you?" Kayanna puts in.

"That's exactly what I plan to do," Chrissy says, in a tone that dares anyone to say she can't.

The whole table is silent for a long moment. Trisha and Kayanna stare at her. The stylists and Lee go back to eating quietly.

"Fine," Trisha says at last. "Do what you want, Chrissy, but you're going to get yourself killed. Allies can be useful."

Chrissy's about to make a caustic remark, when an idea occurs to her. Yes, allies could be useful…a slow, absolutely evil looking expression of knowing slides over Chrissy's face. Trisha looks a little worried.

"I'll be sure to remember that, Trisha," Chrissy says sweetly. She rises gracefully from the table and trots off to her room to contemplate this new idea.

Back in the dining room, Trisha rubs her temples. "What have I done?" she groans. "What am I supposed to do with that child?"

The rest of Chrissy's time in the Capitol blurs into days of fierce training and nights of unforgiving, unrelenting horrors. If anything, the nightmares have gotten worse. Every night, Farah comes to her, calling out for Chrissy to help, or accusing her of not caring. The more it goes on, the more Chrissy thinks she wouldn't mind a drink, or better yet, a dose of morphling. But she pushes off these wounding thoughts and concentrates on her goal: revenge for Farah's death.

Training her for her interview is easy. She's going for the heartless, deadly warrior out for revenge. For her interview with Caesar Flickerman, Xenia has a tight, sleeveless black dress with a shredded hem and a laced back. It's tight around her upper half and then fans out loosely around her knees. She has a gothic choker necklace to go with it, inlaid with rubies. Her pale hair is slicked back and the prep team had lopped off her bangs, as requested. They went heavy on the make-up: lots of mascara, darkening her eyelids, paling her skin and red lipstick. _There's no question about it_, Chrissy thinks, looking in the mirror. _I am deadly_. But another thought flashes in her mind, just for a moment. She's beautiful. Xenia and the prep team have made her beautiful. She crushes this thought before it can provoke an emotional response from her.

None of the tributes make an impression on her. She sits impatiently on a couch with her legs crossed, waiting for Caesar to call her name. As she waits, her mind begins to drift off, a song pushing its way into her head. She allows herself to fall into the music, it fills her mind and taking her away…far away from here…from Panem…from the Hunger Games…from the nightmares of Farah's death…from the-

"Chrissy! Chrissy van Pelt, come on out! You're our next tribute!"

From the looks the other tributes are giving her, Chrissy gathers that Caesar has called her name several times before. She gets to her feet and walks onto the stage as if nothing was wrong.


	8. Interview

The song used here is Hello by Evanescence, a really kick-ass rock band. Check 'em out!

* * *

So, Chrissy, you've refused all requests for allies yet. Prefer to operate solo?" Caesar Flickerman says, leaning in closer, as if she's about to give him a choice piece of gossip.

"Yes," she says shortly.

"Do you have a plan?"

"Only a fool goes into battle without a plan." Chrissy looks him in the eyes with an icy blue gaze. She speaks with frigid certainty. "First, I'm going to find those tributes from District 1 and I'm going to make them pay for what their predecessors did to my sister. I'm going to make them suffer. They're going to be screaming for death before I'm done. And to all those other tributes," she shifts her hard, unflinching gaze to the camera. "Those District 1 tributes are mine. If you kill them, I'll kill you in their stead. It will not be quick. It will not be easy. And it will be painful beyond your wildest imagination. They're mine."  
Her voice is deadly. Low, calm and steady with all the hate and fury of hell thrumming just below the surface. This is what's been burning in her mind ever since the scream left her lips and that District 1 tribute's axe met with Farah's neck. Caesar looks a bit lost as to where to go after a tirade like that. He shifts uneasily in his chair.

"So, your sister was in the Games a few years back? How'd she do?" He settles on asking about her source of anger.

"Her name was Farah and she was 12, 3 years my junior. She made it to the final 15 by avoiding conflict. Then a maniac tribute from District 1 beheaded her while she was gathering fruit. Cut off all her limbs and hung them in trees as a warning to the other tributes." The rage is blindingly apparent now. "And I will never, ever forget that, and I will make sure this year's tributes will remember, too."

"And where were you when your sister was called in the reaping? You seem like the type to take her place." There is no malice in Caesar's question, only curiosity, and it is only this that keeps Chrissy from throwing herself on the talk show host and beating him senseless. As it is, if feels like she's been slapped.

"I was sick. Too sick to go to the reaping, struck down by a fever, possibly from bad meat. If I had been there, I would have taken her place without a second thought."

"Well…you're from District Nine! The Hunting District! So when you're not out there with a bow and arrow, what do you like to do?" Caesar turns to grin ridiculously at the crowd.

"I sing, sometimes. When I'm not taking care of my little siblings," Chrissy says reluctantly.

"Really? And do you write your own songs?" Caesar sounds so interested in her personal life she almost backs away from him, because it's frankly creepy.

"When I can."

"Would you care to share a short one? We have a minute or so left." He flashes her what he must think is a winning smile.

Chrissy's about to open her mouth and vehemently oppose this idea, when she realizes that this could be an ideal opportunity to show the pampered Capitol citizens what the Hunger Games is like for the Districts. She takes a deep breath and starts to sing in a slow, methodic manner, clearly showing the dysfunction of her thoughts she felt after her sister's bloody death.

"_Playground school bell rings again  
Rain clouds come to play again  
Has no one told you she's not breathing?  
Hello, I'm your mind giving you someone to talk to  
Hello _

_If I smile and don't believe  
Soon I know I'll wake from this dream  
Don't try to fix me, I'm not broken  
Hello, I'm the lie living for you so you can hide  
Don't cry _

_Suddenly I know I'm not sleeping  
Hello, I'm still here  
All that's left of yesterday_."

Her voice is nothing the Capitol has ever heard before. It's beautiful. It's beautiful and haunting and throbs with pain. It's like listening to a fallen angel. On the last verse, her voice suddenly takes on a panicked realization and horror shines in her eyes, as if she's seeing the truth of the Fifty-second Hunger Games for the first time. The audience is silent and even Caesar doesn't notice when her time runs out. She draws the last line out, her voice fading into silence and she closes her eyes briefly. When she looks back at Caesar, there's new respect for her in his eyes. He straightens his shirt, clearly shaken by the incident.

"Well. That was lovely, Chrissy, and we all wish you good luck avenging your sister."

The applause is sporadic and slow, as if the Capitol audience is still trying to comprehend the meaning of the song. Chrissy sits down next to Lee, who gives her a look that reflects her own pain, a look of pure compassion, that is lost on Chrissy, before he gets up to talk to Caesar himself.

Lee takes on the humble, innocent kid thrown into a bloodbath. People love him. He's sweet and gentle and probably never even got in a fistfight before this. But to Chrissy he is weak. Weak and easy to kill. Not that she plans on killing Lee. Something in her recoils at the idea, but she won't hesitate if it comes down to it. She'd just rather someone else kill Lee first. There was nothing notable about Lee's interview until the end, where the audience goes wild. They adore Lee and feel like they can relate to him. Chrissy can practically see the smile on Trisha's face at Lee's success. But she's not sure why it matters. They all know Lee's not going to make it out alive.

Back on the ninth floor, Kayanna, Jamir and Trisha rush up to Lee and Chrissy to congratulate them on their interviews.

"You were amazing," Trisha says. "Chrissy, that singing wasn't planned but it was incredible! The Capitol is going crazy for your voice! And Lee, they're in love with you! We'll have no problem getting you sponsors!"

Chrissy tries to feel some pleasure at this. After all, sponsors will make her job easier. But for some reason, all she can think of is sleep. Exhaustion has settled over her in an unshakable blanket.

"Well that's good then," she says, fighting the urge to rub her eyes like a tired child, "I'm going to bed now." And she walks away, leaving the adults to stare after her quizzically.


	9. An Unexpected Twist

In her room, Chrissy washes away the make-up and drops the dress to the ground. When she clears a spot in the mirror, foggy from the heat of her shower, the stunning, deadly warrior from earlier has disappeared, leaving behind a scared, unsure, lost-looking teenager. Chrissy frowns, unable to summon the energy to scowl, and walks away.

She pulls on some boxer shorts and a t-shirt and crawls into bed, hoping that her crushing exhaustion will drive away the nightmares. Tonight, Farah comes to her, running through the trees, wearing her favorite white sundress, terror leaping in her emerald eyes. Dirt and blood streak her face and body and a long cut runs from her shoulder to her elbow. She's running towards Chrissy, crashing through the trees, a strangled cry forming on her lips. There's something coming after her, something huge and violent, leaving a smoking trail in its wake. Chrissy sees the glint of the filthy axe-head before it cleaves through Farah's neck and then Chrissy screams. She lets out the most piercing, horrified, bone-rattling, marrow-chilling scream she can manage.

She sits bolt upright in bed, in a cold sweat, her chest heaving. She brushes her damp curls off her forehead and falls back on the bed with a moan. She can't be screaming like this in the arena, she'll give herself away! She gets out of bed and makes her way to the shower on trembling legs. She sheds her clothes and turns the shower on cold and stands in the water, her forehead pressed against the wall. She slumps to the ground, letting the water run down her face and drip off her nose and chin. After about ten minutes, she drags herself out and puts on some fresh pajamas and falls onto the bed to lie there, sleepless for the rest of the night.

Chrissy finally loses consciousness as light begins to filter through her windows. She draws the thin curtains and stays in bed until Trisha comes along, threatening to bang her door in and drag her out. She dresses in some cargo pants and a plain red t-shirt. Her stomach feel like it's been twisted into a huge knot, but she forces herself to choke down breakfast anyway. And even if she feels bad, it's nothing compared to Lee. The kid is green in the face already. Everyone is quiet. The exhilaration from last night had all but vanished. As they prepare to leave, Kayanna and Jamir come over and wish them good luck, but Lee and Chrissy can see that neither of them have confidence their tributes will come back. Jamir has given up on really training tributes years ago. Kayanna is younger, but is already bitter and cynical and holds little hope for any of her tributes. Chrissy and Lee are taken by hovercraft to the arena. Chrissy turns to go to her prep room, and finds Lee standing in front of her.

"So, the next time we meet will be in the arena," he states quietly.

"Yep."

"Good luck."

"You too." Chrissy is impatient to get to her prep room now. She wants to be alone.

Lee steps forward and offers Chrissy his hand. Uneasy, Chrissy shakes Lee's hand, waiting for something to happen. But it doesn't. Lee shakes her hand and then walks away.

Chrissy shakes her head clear and goes down to her prep room. It's dark and silent and foreboding. Chrissy goes and stands on the platform that will rise up from to the ground of the arena. She realizes as it starts to move up that she's holding her breath. When her platform levels with the ground she looks around in a fleeting moment of despair. Because all around, as far as she can see, is sand. Great big hills of sand, rocky towers in the far distance, sand blowing through the air, stinging her eyes. A desert.

She spots a sword glinting on top of the Cornucopia and knows it's for her. But they're going to make her fight for it. No matter, Chrissy is ready. She vows to get the sword. She crouches down and as the bell sounds, she takes off for the Cornucopia. She ducks as a tribute from 4 lobs a rock at her. She scampers up the pile of supplies and grabs the sword. A tribute from 10 has found some arrows and launches a barrage at her. She grabs a backpack and uses it to deflect the arrows. She slings it onto her back and snags a bundle of knives as she skids down to the sand. For a moment, as her feet meet the uneven, ever-shifting ground, she stumbles. In that instant, the girl from 3, Jackie, comes at her with a spear. Chrissy dodges the spear and swings her sword, taking off the girl's arm. Jackie screams in agony and drops to the ground. Chrissy sprints away from the battle, heading at a diagonal and keeps running until she's winded, not looking back.

She stops behind a large sand dune, panting. This terrain is going to be a disadvantage for her. Tributes will be able to see her coming with her sword for a long ways. And she'll need stable footing to throw her knives with any accuracy. While she waits to catch her breath, she opens her backpack and examines what she's got. She pulls out the arrows and frowns at the rips in the bag. There are 4 packages of dried food, a bag of crackers, 3 bottles of water and a bottle of pills, which appeared to be for water purification purposes. Chrissy puts everything back and stows the arrows too. The fewer arrows 10 has the better. Her first thought is water. Those water bottles won't last long. With that in mind, she takes a drink, which feels like far too little, and goes off in search of water.


	10. First Opponent

Hours pass and still Chrissy finds no water. Her throat is killing her, but she allows herself no more water. She keeps a constant watch on the area around her, keeping watch for enemies. She sees Hezlib, the male tribute from District 2, coming long before he reaches her. He knows this, and approaches her slowly once they're close enough to make out each other's features. An evil grin is spreading on his tan face as he draws closer.

"It's too bad I have to kill you, Sword Queen. You're not bad looking for a backwater huntress."

Chrissy hisses and spits at his feet in response.

Hezlib spits as well and then runs at her with a much shorter sword. Chrissy draws hers and parries his blade away. He runs past her and then turns to attack again. Chrissy takes a defensive stance. As he comes at her, the sand under his left foot gives way, ever so slightly. Chrissy pounces, kicking at his unstable leg and knocking him onto his back. Before he can get up, she stabs his foot with her sword. He shrieks and struggles to get up, pausing on his hands and knees. Chrissy kicks him in the gut and he lashes out with his sword, laying open her leg. She bits back a yelp and plunges her sword into his back. There's a sickening crack and a look of shock crosses his face before he collapses on his face in the sand. Chrissy has to brace her foot against his back to get the leverage she needs to pull her sword free with sickening sucking sound. She wipes if off on Hezlib's back and relieves him of his backpack and sword. This she buries deep in a nearby dune. She can't carry it, and she doesn't want another tribute finding it.

Hezlib's body is removed by a hovercraft and the sand below is scarlet with blood. Chrissy looks inside his backpack and finds a tent, the color of sand. Inside she cheers. This will be great for shelter. She puts everything from her backpack into Hezlib's and leaves her own badly damaged pack behind.

As twilight begins to fall the wind picks up, searing Chrissy's eyes. She reaches into her pack and pulls out a pair of goggles that had been in Hezlib's possession. Ah, better. But seeing is still a challenge and at last she decides to stop and pitch the tent. She chooses a spot behind a sand dune, so she'll have protection on one side. Pitching the tent in the rapidly increasing wind is difficult, even though the tent itself is simple. It's a one man tent with only 3 rods and some stakes. When she's finally done her hands are raw from the biting sand and her face is stinging. She crawls gratefully inside the tent and takes off the goggles. She uses a few precious drops of water to rinse the sand from her eyes and makes a note to keep the goggles on at all times.

When she hears the anthem begin to play, she re-dons the goggles and creeps out of the tent to find the wind has died off, so as to better see the faces of the tributes in the sky. Hezlib, all from 3, the boy from 5, the girl from 7, the girl from 11, and both from 12. 8 total dead. 8 dead and 15 to go. The anthem plays again and Chrissy slides back into the tent as the wind takes off again and zips shut the door. She eats a package of dried beef and washes it down with a swig of water. A throbbing in her leg makes her look down. She'd forgotten the cut Hezlib had given her. Now that she remembers it, it hurts like hell. She takes a knife and cuts away the cuff of her cargo pant leg and ties it around her cut, after rinsing it with a bit of water. Better. That'll keep the sand out. She lies down, using the backpack as a pillow and drifts off into a nightmarish world of dreams.


	11. And so it Begins

More from Evanescence here, this song is called Cloud Nine.

* * *

Chrissy wakes at dawn and eats some dried fruit, takes a sip of water, puts on her goggles and quickly dismantles the tent. That's when she notices the lizard. It's scaly and sort of a muddy brown-green color with yellow eyes. It's watching her curiously. Just watching. But Chrissy doesn't take chances. She whips out her sword and that's when the lizard attacks. It rushes to the side and squirts some kind of liquid on her side. Chrissy can't stop the scream that pierces the air. The lizard spit is like acid, burning through her clothes and flesh and melding them together. It takes all of her concentration to rise up and slash the lizard in half with a lightning flash of her sword. It lets out a dying squirt of acid, which she barely dodges. She sits down to examine her wound. Vomit rises in her throat looking at it. She has to cut her shirt away from it, and even then there are bits of it she has to peel away from the wound. Tears stream down her cheeks, but she bits her backpack strap to keep from screaming again. It's ugly. The flesh around is black and the wound goes down to the pelvis bone. She'll need sterile bandages for this. Loathe as she is to ask for help, Chrissy knows she can't win without help.

"Bandages? Uh…acid cream?" she says to the sky, feeling stupid.

Nothing happens. She scowls. What use are sponsors if they can't help her? Then something Trisha says rings in her ears. _The Capitol is crazy about your voice._ No. Not a chance. A slight breeze blows sand over the wound and the agony that rips up her torso is enough to make her change her mind. In the pain she's in, she's finding it hard to focus, so she chooses a rock song that she can yell and still sound good. But even so, she softens it and sings it higher than she's supposed to, because she wants to flaunt her ability to hit high notes, and she needs the Capitol people to like this.

"_If you want to live, let live.  
If you want to go, let go.  
I'm not afraid to dream, to sleep, sleep forever.  
I don't need to touch the sky.  
I just want to feel that high,  
And you refuse to lift me. _

_Guess it wasn't real after all.  
Guess it wasn't real all along. _

_If I fall and all is lost,  
It's where I belong. _

_If you want to live, let live.  
If you want to go, let go.  
I'm never gonna be your sweet, sweet surrender. _

_Guess it wasn't real after all.  
Guess it wasn't real all along. _

_If I fall and all is lost,  
No light to lead the way,  
Remember that all alone is where I belong. _

_In a dream,  
Will you give your love to me?  
Beg my broken heart to beat,  
Save my life, change my mind. _

_If I fall and all is lost.  
No light to lead the way.  
Remember that all alone is where I belong."_

She puts every ounce of passion and skill she has into that song. Its several tense moments before a silver parachute floats down to her with some kind of cream in it. Chrissy's sure she's never been happier than seeing that parachute. It's like manna from God.

Well, she can use some of her shredded shirt for a bandage, but she'd prefer sterile sponsor bandages. She takes another look at the wound and nearly retches. This is bad. Very bad. She can't even sew up the wound because the flesh is so mutilated it's stuck to the inside of the hole in her side or has fallen off. She cuts off a strip of her shirt, from under the collar where it's widest and rubs it with the cream and presses it to the wound. The fumes hit her nose and that combined with the pain is too much. Black spots swim before Chrissy's eyes and when she opens them again, the sun is higher. She shakes her head to clear it and then rubs more cream on it and ties it around the wound. She knows it's only a matter of time before someone comes along with the racket she's been making.

She takes out her sword and forces herself to the top of a hill to see where her enemies are coming from. Every step is agony, as if someone was trying to rip her open from the inside with…there was no way to really describe the pain of the acid-spit. _At least know I know to stay away from those lizards_, she thinks wryly. She turns her attention back to scanning the area and sees the girl from District 5, Veronique, approaching with the bow. Chrissy foot skies down the hill away from Veronique. This is the hard part. If she can get close enough to swing, Veronique will be going down. On the other hand, she'll have to dodge arrows and a possible ally on her way. She hooks her backpack onto her arm and rises up again, gripping a throwing knife in her other hand. Veronique is much closer now, and has taken aim as she approaches.

As soon as Chrissy's head clears the hill, Veronique fires. Chrissy uses her backpack to block it and hurls a knife at the girl. Veronique dodges and fires again. Chrissy rolls, edging closer and chucks another knife. Veronique has good aim, but she takes too long to be sure of it. Chrissy rapidly throws a barrage of three knives at her. Now she's out of knives, but two have hit their mark, slicing open Veronique's arm and the other has lodged itself non-fatally in her ribs. Veronique swears and shoots at Chrissy. She ducks, but it's almost not enough. The arrow whizzes by her head, becoming entangled in her tightly curled hair. Her eyes widen in shock and then narrow in anger. She whips out her sword and charges Veronique, who is trying to fire and flee at the same time. Chrissy catches up to her in no time. Veronique abandons her attempt to defend herself and runs. Chrissy slices out with the sword and severs Veronique's spinal cord. Both halves of her fall to the ground, leaking blood all over the sand. Chrissy reaches out and grabs the backpack and her knives, and as she does so, a scream reaches her ears.


	12. Stampede

This song is Danny Boy, which clearly does not belong to me. I'm not sure who wrote this...but Hayley Westenra does a really awesome version!

* * *

"Veronique! You bitch!"

Chrissy feels awful, like years ago when she had that strange fever. That disappears when she sees who's running at her with a hammer in hand. Sparkle. The golden-haired tribute from One. One. The District that killed Farah. Cut her apart and used her to threaten enemies. Unquenchable rage explodes inside Chrissy. She grasps her sword tighter and runs to meet Sparkle. Adrenaline courses through her veins, banishing thoughts of her old wounds or disgust at Veronique's dead body. Sparkle swings first and catches Chrissy in the leg as she jumps aside. The blow is weakened by her dodge but pain lances through her leg. However, in memory of her earlier, lizard-educed wound, this is nothing. She lashes out at Sparkle, who's turned, her eyes burning with a manic anger, and purposefully misses a fatal wound. Instead, she slices off Sparkle's left arm. Sparkle drops to the ground, screaming in pain. Chrissy raises her sword to strike again, but something distracts her mid-swing. The sword plunges into Sparkle's shoulder, but all Chrissy can see is lizards. Charging. Stampeding. Surging towards her in a wave of brown and yellow. Her eyes grow massive with terror. One was bad enough. But this is hundreds. Thousands. She grabs Sparkle's backpack, yanking it off and frees her sword. Sparkle jerks forward and sinks her teeth into Chrissy's arm. Chrissy doesn't have time to react; she takes off running faster than she's ever run before in her life, leaving Sparkle to the lizards. Where to hide, where to hide? Then it hits her. Run sideways! There can only be so many lizards. She can't outrun them, but she can avoid them. She pauses on a hill and something grabs her ankle. She screams, assuming it's a lizard. But it's Sparkle! Her eyes glazed with hatred and fury. Chrissy looks beyond her to the lizards fast approaching. She puts a foot on Sparkle's forehead. Fear floods Sparkle's eyes.

"Please…" she whispers.

Chrissy gives her a small push and she rolls down the hill, into the pile of lizards. Chrissy takes off again and never looks back. As she moves west, she sees what must be making the lizards run. A thunderstorm is rapidly approaching. Chrissy is staggering with hunger, fatigue and loss of blood. She can't hold out like this.

She pitches the tent, every movement sending more pain rocketing up her body. She crawls inside and collapses on the ground. She just wants to sleep, but she knows she can't. If she sleeps know she may never wake up. She pulls the arrow out from her hair and tosses it aside. Rain is pounding on the tent roof now. It's so loud and violent sounding, Chrissy's stunned it doesn't break through the tent. She chokes down a package of food and takes long drink from a water bottle. She takes out the cream and applies some to the bite wound from Sparkle. This could be potentially very bad. Human mouths are filthy and this wound could easily be infected. Chrissy doesn't even register the pain. She's in a haze of it, like her nerves are so raw and overwhelmed she can't manage to feel any more of it. Now she steels herself and peels back the cloth from the acid wound. Now she does throw up, stumbling out of the tent to retch up everything that's in her shrunken stomach. Against the pounding rain, which has slightly lessened, the anthem is playing. Chrissy crawls into her tent and sticks her head out to watch.

The faces of Sparkle, the boy from four, Veronique and both from six. 10 of them left. 9 left to kill. Now Chrissy addresses her more immediate and life-threatening problem. She once more turns her face to the dark, stormy sky. Normally, she'd think this color was beautiful, she loved gray and it's many shades, but now the pain was killing her. She vocalizes her request first: "Bandages. And some disinfectant, if you can manage."

And then sings. She picks a happier, slower song than she usually likes because she needs to really stun the Capitol sponsors.

"_Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling.  
From glen to glen and down the mountain side.  
The summer's gone, and all the roses falling.  
'Tis you, 'tis you must go, and I must bide._

But come ye back when summer's in the meadow,  
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow.  
'Tis I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow.  
Oh Danny Boy, oh Danny Boy, I love you so.

But when ye come and all the flowers are dying,  
And I am dead, as dead I well may be,  
Go out and find the place where I am lying,  
And kneel and say an Ave there for me.

And I will hear tho' soft your tread above me,  
And then my grave will warm and sweeter be.  
For you shall bend and tell me that you love me,  
And I will sleep in peace until you come to me

_."_

The parachutes with disinfectant and bandages appear almost immediately. She can't help the thanks that burst from her hurries back into her tent and literally pours the disinfectant on both wounds, which turns out to be a huge mistake. The fiery anguish rips through her flesh, until she's rolling on the tent floor tears streaming down her cheeks, biting a hole in her backpack to hold in the inhuman shriek building in her throat. It seems to be centuries before the torment at last subsides, and then Chrissy sits up, douses a few bandages in more disinfectant and braces herself, wrapping up the bit wound first and the acid-hole second. Then she curls up in a ball, sure that she's never known a greater misery.


	13. Blistering and Earthquakes

Evanescence is just so perfect for the Hunger Games isn't it? This one's one of my favs, it's Going Under.

* * *

Chrissy wakes in the middle of the night and riffles around in her pack and to wolf down the package of crackers and take some more water. She's lost one and a half bottles know and is starting to edge out. She wishes she'd thought to catch the rainwater, but at the time, her wounds had seemed the most important thing. The sound of cannon fire jolts her senses.

Now she's really starting to freak. Should she stay put? The tent is well camouflaged, but if the attacker is close enough, they'll see it anyway. But the tribute could have died of other causes. She can't leave her camp either…she's no allies to guard it. She decides to wait it out. She takes her sword and sits outside the tent, her injured side hanging awkwardly off to one side. No one comes. She creeps up the sand dune behind her tent and looks around. There, lying on the ground, obviously having dragged themselves several feet, is a tribute. Chrissy's first impulse is to rush forward and finish them off, but something else kicks her brain. What if it was a trap? She looks at the blood streaking the ground and decides whoever it is; they'll die before they're really a threat. All the same, she feels uneasy. She grips a knife tightly and throws it. It hits the tribute's back and she sees their body jerk with a silent cry and then a cannon goes off. She creeps back to camp to find one of those lizards sitting just inside her tent flap. Chrissy wants to cry, she's so tired. But she can't risk another acid wound. She goes around behind the tent and beats on it, hissing and growling. To her immense relief, the lizard startles away and she collapses inside the tent. Her nightmares are worse than ever.

Chrissy wakes up with a dry mouth and a mind blank with terror. Her face is wet with tears shed during her sleep and her side is throbbing. She peels back the covering to find the wound oozing green gunk.

"That's probably bad," she says in a strained whisper.

She applies more agonizing disinfectant, so painful she sees stars and applies a new bandage. She eats some dried food and takes a miniscule sip of water. She bites her lip now, unsure of what to do. She decides, as loath as she is to waste time, that she has to stop and rest a day. She lays back on her backpack and drifts off into an uneasy sleep. The one good thing is that she's sleeping too lightly to have any dreams. The sun has reached its zenith when she wakes definitively. She denies herself anything more than sucking on a chunk of dried pork, since she hasn't done anything today. She leans back and rests her head once more on the lumpy backpack, praying to whatever gods might be in the sky that she can spend one day in peace. She closes her eyes and it's the anthem that wakes her again. Twilight has fallen and they're playing the tribute faces. Only one dead today, the girl from 4. Chrissy drinks some water and gnaws on another piece of dried meat. She doesn't dare risk water on her wound but instead rubs if off with the flip side of a soiled bandage. Then she goes back to sleep.

Rain pounding on the tent roof shakes her from the dregs of sleep. Water! She jumps up, gasping for her side and hurries outside. She stands in the rain and opens her mouth to catch the drops. That's when the fire starts. It's spreading all over her body and she stands there like an idiot, looking confused for a second or two when she realizes it's the rain! It's blistering her skin! She throws herself back into the tent, swearing violently.

Angry red blotches and bubbly spots are starting to boil on her skin. She grabs the cream from her back and starts slathering it all over her body. But she can't fix the ones in her mouth. Instead, she takes some of her ever-dwindling supply of water and swishes it around in her mouth. She lies on the tent floor and just thinks. Thinks about how much she hurts, how much she's suffering…and for a moment she forgets why she was here. Then her last nightmare about Farah comes to her mind and the blind hell-fire of rage surges up in her. She sits up, fighting off the urge to go and kill right now. The anger takes the place of everything that she's been through and reminds her of why she volunteered for the reaping. As soon as the rain stops she gets out of her tent and starts practicing with her sword, working on covering her bad side.

When light begins to creep over the horizon, she stows her sword and packs up. She eats a pack of food. Today she's going to kill some tributes. Then she'll have more food. As she walks, she vaguely wonders if those acid lizards are edible. If she could catch one, that is. In the end, she decides that the danger of another spit-wound is worse than the hunger. She reaches into her bag and drains a water bottle. One left. She checks her food supply. Only half a bag left. She finishes it off and keeps moving. Her thoughts are clearer now that she's not dizzy with hunger.

So when a knife whizzes past her cheek, she immediately spins on her heel and throws one back, catching the District 1 male tribute, Topaz, in the shoulder. He snarls at her and plucks the knife out. His golden-bronze hair shimmers in the sunlight. Rage pounds in Chrissy's head. She grabs her sword and lets out blood-chilling battle cry as she charges at him. He draws a spear and takes a defensive stance. He meets her sword with his axe and deflects it. Chrissy swings again and he tries to deflect but she pushes his weapon to the ground and holds it for a second. As she does so, she kicks him in the shin. He stumbles backward and she kicks him in the groin. But he lashes out at her as she does and while he collapses to the ground, a deep, bleeding wound opens up on Chrissy's upper leg. However, the blow connected so she ignores the blood flowing from her wound. Instead, she swings her sword and cuts off Topaz's spear arm. She grabs the spear as Topaz struggles to his feet, drawing another knife. Chrissy's sword is too long for him though, and she lops off his other arm. He howls in pain and as he does, Chrissy drives his spear deep into his sternum and then buries the other end in the sand, leaving him wriggling around and screaming on the sharp end. He starts so slide down, ever so slowly. Chrissy spits on him.

"That's for my sister."

Unbridled fury sweeps through her over Farah's unjust death. Suddenly, the ground beneath her began to tremble, then shake, then rattle as if someone was trying to knock her out of the arena. She takes off instantly. Sand dunes are collapsing all around her, and then the ground begins to fall away with deafening crashes. Topaz shrieks one last time before he falls under the earth. Beneath, as far as Chrissy can see looking over her shoulder is a bottomless black pit. No doubt death awaits there. She runs faster, but her side cramps horribly. And then, as quickly as it's started the shaking stops.

Chrissy flops down on the ground and pulls her pant leg up to examine her wound. Bad, very bad. She looks into the backpack she grabbed from Topaz before she speared him and found a needle and thread. She takes a deep breath and punctures her skin with the needle and starts to sew up the cut. Nausea floods her senses, but she forces it down until she snips the thread and then she leans over the hurls all over the sand. She doesn't bother to clean the newly sewn wound, just covers it up and pitches her tent. Then she sits back inside for the nightly rainstorm. The blisters from last night are festering. She monitors this new development uneasily as she eats a packet of dried food she got from Topaz and polishes off her second to last water bottle. By now she's lost weight (not that she was heavy to begin with) and is feeling thick from lack of water. The anthem comes on and Topaz's face shines in the sky for a moment. And then, for a brief second, revulsion rises up in Chrissy and she can't look at Topaz's face anymore. She looks away and asks her sponsors for food and water. Pushing away her exhaustion and emotional drain she summons the energy to sing, as expected. As she takes a breath to sing, she's suddenly overcome by the unfairness of this whole affair and is filled with hate against the Capitol. So she picks a particularly depressing song she started after entering the arena. It came to her in little bits after waking from her nightmares only to find the world she woke into to be a greater horror than the one she left behind.

"_Now I will tell you what I've done for you -  
50 thousand tears I've cried.  
Screaming, deceiving and bleeding for you -  
And you still won't hear me.  
Don't want your hand this time - I'll save myself.  
Maybe I'll wake up for once  
Not tormented daily defeated by you  
Just when I thought I'd reached the bottom_

_I'm dying again_

_I'm going under_

_Drowning in you  
I'm falling forever  
I've got to break through  
I'm going under_

_Blurring and stirring - the truth and the lies.  
So I don't know what's real and what's not  
Always confusing the thoughts in my head  
So I can't trust myself anymore_

_I'm dying again_

_I'm going under  
Drowning in you  
I'm falling forever  
I've got to break through_

_I'm..._

_So go on and scream  
Scream at me I'm so far away  
I won't be broken again  
I've got to breathe - I can't keep going under_

_I'm dying again_

_I'm going under  
Drowning in you  
I'm falling forever  
I've got to break through_

_I'm going under  
I'm going under  
I'm going under."_

After a while, a parachute bearing a bottle of water, 2 loaves of bread and some cheese floats down. Chrissy wolfs down half the bread and cheese and slowly drinks half the water throughout the night. She makes a decision. She's getting out of this arena tomorrow. One way or another. She says this out loud, so when she does get out, the Capitol can know the force of her determination. She goes to sleep that night with her hand on her sword handle.


	14. Bloodbath

She wakes at dawn to the rumbling, earth-splitting sound again. She grabs her weapons and sprints out as the tent falls into the abyss. She's never been a good distance runner and she's already tiring. Looking out around the arena she can see that the same thing is happening all over. She can also see tributes racing towards a central location. Away from the sand, into the rockier area where Chrissy has yet to venture into. The Gamemakers are guaranteeing a massacre today. They seem to be as eager to end the game as Chrissy is. She holsters her knives in her waistband and grips her sword tighter. The tributes are closing in. She dashes behind a rock pillar to find a tiny tribute from District 10. The arrow girl.

"It's gonna be a bloodbath," the girl whispers. "Allies?"

Chrissy takes on a contemplative look as she approaches. She looks over her shoulder, as if startled and draws close to the girl. She's close enough to whisper in her ear, "I work alone" before she plunges her sword into the girl's gut.

A look of surprise crosses her youthful face before she collapses. Chrissy retracts her sword and looks out. The earth-crumbling has stopped, leaving about a half a mile radius of land left. Not much at all. The tributes there have already started fighting. The girl from 2 lies dead. Chrissy grasps her sword tightly and runs out, slicing off the arm of the boy from 10. He drops to the ground and the girl from 8 finishes him off with a throwing star. Chrissy marks her as a threat instantly and lodges a knife in her throat. The boy from 8 sprints towards her and she ducks, laying open his back.

Then she's a blur of flashing metal and blood as the other tributes mark her as the one to kill. Limb and blood are flying and Chrissy never falters. The boiling anger soaring in her body makes itself apparent as she swings her sword with wanton venom. 8 runs past her only to be skewered by the boy from 4, who Chrissy hits in the chest with another knife. The girl from 2 stabs her in the back as she throws her knife, but she misses any vital organs. Chrissy spins around, tearing the knife from 2's grip and slices her head off. The boy from 10 and the boy from 7 rush her. She buries her sword into 7's gut and twists away from 10, nearly severing 7's spine. He drops down, bleeding to death, leaving her staring at the boy from 10 and the boy from 11. For several tense moments, they all stare at each other. Then, with a flash of speed, 11 throws a knife at 10, nailing him in the forehead and Chrissy hits 11 in the temple with a knife. He slumps to the ground and Chrissy strolls over him and raises her sword over her head. With a clean, decisive moment, she plunged the sword into his chest. Blood spurts out and splatters her front. Cannons are going off all over and the sound is deafening for a moment.

Now she looks around her, her sword still poised to strike, panting, her eyes glazed with animal madness. As she surveys the bloody mess around her, the crowd waits for her to smile or cheer or show some sign of pleasure that she had achieved the revenge she had been so bent on. But as Caesar's voice rang out, _"Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of the fifty-fifth Hunger Games, Chrissy van Pelt!" _an expression of utmost horror is growing on her face. Chrissy looks at the dead tributes and sees only their faces, still plump with child fat, their hair still soft, and their bodies young. Then she looks down and sees herself covered in blood. Her eyes widen to the size of dinner plates and she sinks to her knees. "My God, my God," she groans, sounding as if she were in agony. "What have I done? What have I become? Oh, my God!"


	15. Outward healing, Inward dying

They pull her into the hovercraft and plunge a needle into her arm. Everything goes fuzzy and the last thing she hears is,

"Get on that acid wound, _now_!"

When she wakes up, the first thing she registers is the stiffness. She's finding it very hard to move her legs. She snaps her eyes open and tosses the blanket off of herself. Her pelvis is wrapped up in a hard plaster cast. Her arms are hooked up to IV's. She sits up, but her head spins violently and then everything goes black again.

The laughter reached her ears first. Distant and haunting; an echo of Farah's last laugh. Then the trees come into view. It's so quiet…the silence lies like a stifling coat of sun-blackened tar over the trees. Chrissy feels as though she is choking on it; it's smothering her face; she can't breathe! Then, a twig snaps behind her. She turns to see Farah creeping through the trees, blood dripping from numerous undressed cuts on her face, her hair a wild, tangled mess. Her eyes are dark with a manic fear and wariness and grief twists the pleasure in Chrissy's heart. Her poor sister…so broken! Look what they had done to her!

"Farah!" Chrissy cries. But her voice is distorted so horribly she can't recognize the sound that leaves her mouth. "Farah, sweetheart, come here!" She reaches out to touch her sister.

But Farah is stumbling backwards, frantically slashing with her knife until she trips over a tree root.

"Get back!" she shrills. "Back!" Her face is a mask of terror: the poor child is weeping tears of fear. Hurt bolts through Chrissy's heart. She glances away for a moment, hearing something to the side and when she looks back, Farah is right in front of her. Anger has replaced the fear in her child-plump face. She thrusts her knife into Chrissy's gut, fury and desire to live distorting her features. Between the shock and the pain, Chrissy drops to her knees, clutching the knife.

"Farah…?" she gasps, but what comes out of her mouth is an unearthly howl.

Farah gives her a look of grim triumph, her face becoming a grotesque parody of Chrissy's sister, her eyes shifting to a bright red…Chrissy screams and jerks awake. Even the realization that it was a dream brings no relief and she keeps screaming, screaming because it will never end, never be over. Every day for the rest of her life, the nightmare would be her life, and there would be no waking from the ceaseless torrent of guilt, terror and agony that plagued every moment of her existence, and had since Farah's death in the Games. The thought brings another tortured cry from Chrissy's lips and a tight fist squeezes her heart until she is sure it will burst. No one comes. No one wonders or worries about her screaming. They know, they all know! They've all been around the Victors, and all the Victors have the nightmares. Those around them are familiar with their screams. The screams of those whose lives have been twisted and mutilated so terribly that the only possible relief was death, and that was to doom more innocent children to a wretched death. The screams of those beyond hopelessness, the screams of those who would beg for death, for an end to the pitiful, tormented existence that could hardly be called life. Chrissy's scream breaks off into a sob, a harsh, dry sob that beats against her ribcage and claws at her throat. They come again and again until she swallows and gets control of herself. But there are no tears. Not yet.

It is over two weeks before Chrissy can walk again, and then they load her onto the train bound for home. Jamir, who Chrissy has always liked better, comes in to talk to her. He never minces words, or sugar-coats things. He says it like it is and she appreciates this.

"We're approaching District 9."

Chrissy doesn't respond.

"You're going to need help getting off the train."

No response.

Jamir sighs. "You're going to have to act happy for the cameras."

"Why?" Chrissy demands, unable to muster a fierce expression in her eyes, only emptiness.

"Because you're expected to," Jamir says bluntly.

"I don't care."

"Think of your family. You can't spend the rest of your life thinking about Farah."

"It's not just about her," Chrissy says, looking away.

"Then what is it?"

"Look at what I did, Jamir. Look at what I let the Capitol turn me into. I slaughtered those kids. How can I face my family now?"

Jamir sighs. "This is a burden you'll carry with you for a long time. But you can't entirely blame yourself for what happens in the arena. People change in the arena."

But Chrissy can see something in Jamir's eyes. He is afraid of her. He is wondering if he'd been in the arena, if he could have protected himself from her. Something wrenches in Chrissy and she turns away and closes her eyes. Jamir sits by her side for a moment more, then decides that there's nothing more he can say and walks away.


	16. The strength of Family Ties

Chrissy has to use crutches to walk when they arrive at District 9. She stubbornly refuses to accept help, so Trisha and Kayanna hover nervously around her, ready to catch her if she should stumble. Jamir wisely stays away, knowing stubborn Chrissy would rather fall than be caught. District 9 cheers for her as she walks over to her family. They stand stony-faced and stiff. Her mother won't look her in the eyes. Chrissy surveys them, a terrible fear rising in her that her family will not accept her back.

"Lisa? Cooper?"

Lisa looks at her, and she looks angry. Afraid. Like she doesn't know who she's looking at. Cooper has tears in his eyes and looks at his feet. A lump is rising in Chrissy's throat. Suddenly she feels as if she can't breathe. She kneels before Cooper and turns his face up. He flinches away from her touch and she draws back swiftly, falling back on her heels. Her heart is hammering and Kayanna has to grab her arm and haul her to her feet and hand her the crutches. Trisha puts a hand to her mouth and Jamir and Kayanna move to flank Chrissy and shield her from the confused crowd's searching eyes. They leave Trisha behind and hustle Chrissy off to Victor's Village. This is business only tributes understand. They lead her to a house between Jamir's and Yeoman's and sit her down on the couch. They both look at her for a long moment. Chrissy seems incapable of speech.

"They'll come around," Kayanna says, though she doesn't sound hopeful.

"Maybe," Jamir grunts. "Most likely not. The life of a Victor is a lonely one. Just look at Yeoman. Lost everything to the Games and morphling."

Chrissy doesn't raise her head. "They don't know me," she rasps. She sounds as if she were a million miles away, inside her head. Kayanna looks at Jamir uncertainly.

"It's always tough on the families, to see their children kill so viciously," she says. Chrissy wraps her arms around herself to stop the violent shaking that has started.

Kayanna sighs. "We have to go now. We'll be in the Village if you need something." But she says it with a finality that Chrissy know she's not being invited anywhere. They leave, and the door shutting shatters what's left of Chrissy's frayed nerves. She screams. But it doesn't help the turmoil inside. She feels sure she'll die of it. She slithers off the couch and slumps on the floor, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. She opens her mouth and lets out a strangled, scratchy cry and the tears start to come harder. She doesn't move for the rest of the day. And that night, the nightmares come. And there is no mercy.

Its several days before Chrissy pulls herself together enough to begin to go about daily life. She showers, and eats, and brushes her hair. She changes the bandages on her wounds. One day she decides to go and visit Yeoman. She hasn't seen him since her return, and he knows what she's going through. Right? She treats it like a big deal, putting on her 'fancy' clothes and brushing her hair and showering. She pulls on some unused shoes and socks and takes her crutches next door.

She hammers on the door for a solid minute and no one answers. _Where has he got to go?_ She thinks furiously. _He'd better not be ignoring me!_ She barges in and sees Yeoman sprawled across the couch. As soon as she gets a good look at him, she knows he's gone from bad to worse since she left. His skin is yellow sagging off his body like he's lost a lot of weight in not very much time. He looks and smells like he hasn't had a shower in weeks, or shaved. She shakes him hard, but he doesn't wake. In growing desperation, she whacks him on the back with one of her crutches. Yeoman wakes slowly, as if he's dragging himself from the dastardly clutches of a morphling-induced coma. He sits up and looks at her, confused. His eyes are unfocused, feverish and dilated. _Chrissy_ His lips form the word he cannot say. He falls back on the couch.

"Get up! I won! Get up, Yeoman!" Chrissy isn't sure why she's yelling, or telling Yeoman things he already knows.

He drags himself off the couch and staggers over to a drawer, which he fumbles around in for several moments before pulling out a syringe. He tugs his sleeve up and Chrissy can see dark bruises where he's used the needle before. He injects the morphling in and a peaceable, placated look draws over his face. Chrissy feels an unrelenting, unreasonable surge of anger. She feels as if Yeoman too has abandoned her. She storms out, as best she can with her crutches and trips and falls down the front steps with a yelp. Yeoman does not come to help her. He stands in front of the bureau and watches her struggle to reach her crutches. It's raining now, and the grass is slick with water and mud. Chrissy strains to reach her crutch, but can't. Tears of frustration drip down her cheeks. She has to lean forward on her belly and drag herself to the crutch, crawling like a worm. When she at last manages to muscle her way to her feet, she's wearing mud like a second skin and she's dizzy with pain.

"It's not fair!" she screeches. "Fuck! Look at what I've become! A fucking pig, wallowing around in the mud, too pathetic to even get to her own damn feet! What the fuck did I win for? I've lost everything!"

She rages at the sky, which spits water in her face as a response. The very clouds seem to be mocking her. She lurches back into Yeoman's house, where he's holding a second syringe. She grabs it away from him and plunges it deep into her own arm. She feels a pleasant numbness spreading through her arm and slowly making its way through her body. An alarming sense of vertigo and amnesia sweep over her before she slides down against the wall and lets the drugged sleep overtake her.


	17. Imaginary

She's sitting in a field. The flowers are a muted yellow. She reaches out to touch one, and is pleasantly surprised to find that it's paper. She looks up and the sky above her is a vibrant purple, and it's…moving. The clouds are candy pink. She's wearing a white sundress, and it's soft and airy. She doesn't know how long she sits, but it's so peaceful…time has a hazy, sleepy passing here. She lies down in the flowers and watches the sky fly over her. She feels like she'd be happy just to stay here forever. A blue bird flits about overhead and begins to whistle a familiar tune. Chrissy smiles and closes her eyes, just enjoying the sound of the bird. When it's done with its song, it flies off and Chrissy sits up to wave goodbye. After some time, bubbly laughter reaches her ears. She gets to her feet with no trouble and sees Farah, racing towards her, her dark hair streaming out behind her.

"Chrissy!" she calls. "Come here! Look at my flower!" The young girl stops in front of Chrissy, holding up a massive yellow flower.

"Wow, Farah, its beautiful! Like you." Chrissy tucks the flower behind Farah's ear and the child throws her arms around Chrissy's throat. "I have a secret," she whispers.

"What is it?" Chrissy whispers back.

"You're it."

Farah taps Chrissy's shoulder and takes off through the field, giggling. Chrissy laughs and chases after her. She feels so light…so carefree…she can't remember what troubled her before…She feels a warm, gentle breeze blowing on her cheeks as she runs, and the flowers are soft, reaching out to caress her legs as she jogs through them. But then something changes. Chrissy just has a moment to sense it before her world is turned upside down. The flowers wilt and crumble before her, the sky turns red, but in a spattering manner, as if it were being sprayed with blood until she could see no more purple. The air is suddenly boiling hot, and Chrissy can feel sweat beading on her forehead. The dead flowers have sprouted three-inch thorns. But the worst thing is the inhuman squeal that stabs at her ears.  
"Farah!" she exclaims, terror-struck.

She sprints towards the unearthly wailing sound, thorny vines reaching out to wrap around her legs. She tears away from them, ripping out chunks of her flesh, until she's running on bone legs, with tatters of flesh hanging on. The pain is almost overwhelming, but she keeps going, desperation to stop the death of her sister driving her on. She sees Farah on a hill, but as she approaches she sees someone else. Someone she can't make out. Coming closer, she can see she's too late. Farah has been skewered on a spear and her agonized cries have died down to moans. Blood flows from her gut and pools at Chrissy's feet. She looks up at the black demon that has murdered her sister. It has wild hair and sharp teeth and a vicious, cold, merciless look. But as Chrissy looks into its eyes…dark green eyes…so dark they're almost black…

Chrissy wakes screaming. The last part of her dream has taken barely moments to unfold, but those moments were enough to fill her with terror and disgust. She trips into the kitchen and is violently sick in the sink. Yeoman is passed out at the table. She's shaking so hard she can't stand and has to use the counter to lower herself down to the tiled floor. She wipes the vomit off her face with her hand and leans against the counter, making it rattle with her vigorous trembling.

"No wonder morphlings always want more," she whispers. "Who wants to wake up to that?"

It's near an hour before she crawls back into the living room to get her crutches. She examines the syringe she had taken earlier. It was an incredibly large dose of morphling, especially for her first time. She shakes her head, wondering how long she's been out and carefully makes her way down the stairs and heads off to her house. Every muscle in her body is howling in protest, but she keeps going. She can see Jamir standing on her porch.

"Chrissy!" he calls. "I was just coming to check on you…you look awful!" He approaches her and takes hold of one of her sleeves, jerking it up. There's no hiding the dark bruise there.

"Morphling? Already?"

"I won't do it again," she says quietly. "Not anytime soon."

Jamir shakes his head. "The wake- up? They always say that's the worst."

Chrissy just has to look Jamir in the eyes and he can see her thoughts about it reflected there.

"You're still a mess. Do I need to get Kayanna to take care of you or something?"

"No. I slipped coming back, that's all. It was raining,"

"Chrissy, that was yesterday afternoon. It's nearly six o'clock! How much morphling did you take?"

"A lot," she admits.

Jamir holds onto her arm for a long moment, until she pulls away, gently, more to avoid pain to herself than any feelings of gentleness towards her mentor.

"I'm fine." Some of her icy demeanor has returned. "I can take care of myself." And she limps away, into her empty mansion.


	18. A Thread to Cling to

More Evanescence for ya! If no one's guessed yet, they're my favorite band. This bit is called Imaginary.

* * *

Chrissy makes her way into the bathroom and collapses on the white tiled floor. She groans and gasps with pain as she leans over to turn on the water for a bath. Showers are still too dangerous. She has to fight to peel off her ruined cloths and toss them aside and then pull herself over the edge of the bathtub, plunging into a vat of burning water. She shrieks but stays in the burning water, sweating and squinty-eyed with pain rather than heave herself back out to wait for it to cool. She grabs a bar of soap and scrubs the filth of her skin and then works the suds into her hair. She lies back in the water and stares at the ceiling, letting the silt and mud drift to the bottom of the tub.

When she finally makes the effort to get out, her skin is wrinkly and soft and the water is nearly black. Out of curiosity, she reaches into the cabinet and fumbles around, looking for some kind of pain reducer. No luck. She goes into her bedroom and pulls on a robe, feeling too exhausted to tackle the task of actually getting dressed. Besides, it's not like she's going anywhere. She collapses on the bed, emotionally drained and physically spent. She closes her eyes and falls into a blissfully deep sleep that lasts for several precious hours before the nightmares come. And even then, she's too tired from the morphling to experience the full terror.

The next day someone pounds on her door. Chrissy groans. She doesn't want visitors. She rolls over and pulls a pillow over her head. The hammering stops, but then she can sense someone watching her. She looks up and Jamir stands in the door way, looking pitiless.

"I came by to make sure you hadn't committed suicide yet. And to prevent that, we decided you'd like this." Kayanna peers around Jamir's shoulder and holds something out to Chrissy.

"A guitar? Why?" She's too tired to think much.

"Because you need to develop a talent for your Victory tour, and the Capitol is saying you've got the voice of an angel. So, here, take this and learn to play it and don't kill yourself with a butter knife," Jamir says in his usual detached tone.

Chrissy pulls herself to her feet and walks over to take the guitar. She can't understand exactly why she's getting this. It should be her responsibility to come up with a talent. She takes the smooth wood of the neck in her hand and gives Jamir an unreadable look.

"Thanks."

Jamir nods curtly. "I figured you wouldn't be coming up with anything on your own. Come, Kayanna."

The two exit and Chrissy listens to the sound of the footsteps die and the door slam echo. It sounds very loud. She strums the guitar softly. The sound of music spreads out over the empty room. Chrissy feels her heart lift just a smidge. As if there was a tiny thread attached to it, trying to pull it up from the muck and depression it was settled in.

Weeks later, Chrissy has an outlet for her all her violent emotions. Music. She wrote a new song, based on her experience with morphling.

_I linger in the doorway  
Of alarm clock screaming  
Monsters calling my name  
Let me stay  
Where the wind will whisper to me  
Where the raindrops, as they're falling, tell a story_

_In my field of paper flowers  
And candy clouds of lullaby  
I lie inside myself for hours  
And watch my purple sky fly over me_

_Don't say I'm out of touch  
With this rampant chaos - your reality  
I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge  
The nightmare I built my own world to escape_

_In my field of paper flowers  
And candy clouds of lullaby  
I lie inside myself for hours  
And watch my purple sky fly over me_

_Swallowed up in the sound of my screaming  
Cannot cease for the fear of silent nights  
Oh, how I long for the deep sleep dreaming  
The goddess of imaginary light_

_In my field of paper flowers  
And candy clouds of lullaby  
I lie inside myself for hours  
And watch my purple sky fly over me_

_Paper flowers_

Imaginary.

Walking through town on a chilly fall evening, two months before her set Victory tour date, she runs into Cooper. She looks down at him in surprise.

"Cooper! You haven't been to visit my new house," she says in an attempt at a normal conversation.

Cooper looks at his tattered shoes. "Father says we're not to speak to you. Mother says you're dangerous."

Cooper couldn't have deflated Chrissy's meager satisfaction with life better if he had gut-punched her.

"I would never hurt you!" she cried angrily. "Why would Mary say that?" She refuses to call her mom.

"I-because of the-the G-Games," Cooper stammers, backing away.

"Well I'd never hurt you, or Lisa! I won the Games so I could come back and take care of you! So we could live in Victor's Village!"

"I-I have to get home," Cooper's voice is barely audible, he's clearly terrified.

"Fine! Go!" Chrissy snaps. "Go back and live with that man you call Father!"

Cooper backs away a bit more and then runs.

Chrissy kicks a rock. _What's the point of winning if I alienate everyone I care about?_ She thinks despairingly. Having forgotten why she came into town, she meanders back to Victor's Village. She lost the crutches weeks ago when the town physician declared her healed. A breeze ruffles her curly hair that has grown out to her shoulders. When she gets back to her house, hands in her pockets, grumbling to herself, Trisha is sitting on her couch, with a self-satisfied smile.


	19. Performing

This song is by Heather Nova, it's called I'm Alive.

* * *

Chrissy draws back like an offended snake.

"What are you doing here? This is my house. My Victory tour isn't for another two months!" Chrissy snarls.

"Yes, indeed," Trisha brushes something invisible off her leg. "But I know your talent is music, so we need to get recording now."

"Recording?" Chrissy doesn't feel like being insightful.

"Yes. We're recording videos and audios of you singing and playing your guitar. Some may air on television," Trisha says indifferently.

Chrissy hisses. "I don't want to be on TV! Not ever again!"

"That's not your choice," Trisha says coldly.

Chrissy glares at Trisha with undisguised loathing. At last she forces a word past her clenched teeth and tight lips.

"Fine."

Her prep team bustles in from the back door.

"I have to be prepped?" Chrissy can't keep the dismay from her voice.

"Yes," Trisha says in a voice that invites no argument.

So Chrissy allows the prep team to hustle her upstairs into the bathroom. Flame-hair, whose name seems to be Trig, gives a cry of horror over her legs. They strip her down, shave off all her body hair and slather her in lotion. They cut her hair back and pierced her ears, which had sealed up since the beginning of the Games. They stuffed her into a floor-length black strapless dress with a cross back and pin a fake black rose in her hair. Whiskers puts the final touches on with white diamond earrings and a matching necklace. Chrissy's never felt more fake in her whole life. Trisha sits her on a stool on the living room, which has been transformed. There's a backdrop showing a snowy forest and there are lights and cameras and Chrissy has to fight the urge to run screaming from the room and bury her face in her pillow and hide from the nightmare that has become her fate. But she swallows her panic and takes the guitar that Trisha is holding out to her. It's only when she realizes it's a new one, not her own, that she protests.

"I want my guitar."

"But this one fits the scene," Trisha complains.

"I don't care. I won't play unless you give me my own guitar to play."

Something about the stubborn light in her eyes makes Trisha cave and she takes the black guitar and hands Chrissy her plain wooden one. She strums the strings and Trisha says,

"I want something solemn for this. No rock. I suppose it would be asking for too much for you to play something happy?" Trisha's disdain for Chrissy's brand of music is clear.

"Yes, it would." An icy blast blows through Chrissy's words. She closes her eyes briefly and then starts to play.

"_Your hands were covered in paint  
The pillow smothered my cry  
You were half charmer half snake  
I lived in dreamtime _

_But I'm alive; I survived you  
And the bitter taste, the years I wasted  
All the hate is gone  
'Cause I'm Alive _

_Some nights I'd sleep in the car  
Just to escape you  
You drove devotion too far  
No-one could save you _

_But I'm alive; I survived you  
And the bitter taste, the years I wasted  
All the hate is gone  
'Cause I'm Alive _

_I still have visions of you  
I still have nights to get through  
And when the trust isn't true  
I have these visions of you, visions of you _

_But I'm alive; I survived you  
And the bitter taste, the years I wasted  
All the hate is gone cause I'm alive  
Ride on and fade away  
There's nothing more to say  
Ride on and fade away  
There's nothing more to say."_

She starts with 'I'm Alive' and goes on from there. It's well past dark when Trisha at least lets her flee to the bathroom to shed her Capitol skin and wait for the camera crew to go. She can't help but have a grim satisfaction over the outcome. Maybe her heart-breaking, tormented, lost songs will show the Capitol what the Games really do to the kids who compete. She showers and climbs into bed. Tonight her own voice sings over the sound of her family's screams.

Trisha and the camera crew are back the next day. Over the next two months, they run her through every song she knows and then bring in some new ones. Chrissy and Trisha are in a constant battle about the songs that Trisha wants her to sing. She hates the songs the Capitol crew has brought her. They're all sappy love songs, or too happy, or really just not her. But in the end she doesn't really have a choice. At last it's over, and Trisha's packing up to take Chrissy on her Victory tour with Kayanna and Jamir. Chrissy feels cold dread in her stomach at the thought. It's bringing back her feelings about what she did in the arena and it's almost more than the young 18 year old can bear.

She gets on the train on a gray Wednesday morning, alone. She goes right to her room and curls up on the bed, resting her cheek on the window and watching Panem fly by.


	20. Speeches

She eats little that night and the nightmares are worse than ever. She wakes screaming from sleep three times before she gives up and pulls a book out of her pack to read until it's light out. She stands by the door, looking out at the desolate, caged landscape know as District 12. The Mining District. Fun. She takes a deep breath and steps off onto the platform. At least she wasn't personally responsible for the deaths of anyone from this District. It's even colder here, and Trisha offers her a dark green scarf, which she dons gratefully. The people of District 12 are silent as she goes up to make her speech. She looks out over these people and feels horror and disgust rising in her gut. They're hopeless. Their eyes are empty, devoid of emotion, as if they're just plodding along through life and have forgotten why they don't just die. Chrissy clear her throat and starts to speak, making it up as she goes along.

"I didn't know either of your tributes but they seemed…uh…nice. I…" She was totally lost. What was she supposed to say to these people? She couldn't even apologize for killing one of their tributes. "I wish you the best of luck for the coming year, and…that there aren't any…cave-ins."

She gets down off the podium, wanting so badly so sink into the dusty ground. Effie Trinket, appointed just this year to District 12, is looking around uncertainly. Chrissy's supposed to meet the District 12 Victors now, and they only have one, who is nowhere to be seen.

"Uh…has anyone seen Haymitch?" Effie asks, blushing furiously at this new embarrassment.

_Now her face matches that ridiculous wig_, Chrissy thinks, curling her lip at the sight of Effie's voluminous pink wig. The crowd stares back at her, response free. Effie turns to Chrissy and Trisha, humiliated.

"Ah, well, you'll have to meet our Victor later…for now, why don't you go back to your train and prepare for dinner?"

Trisha frowns. "Well I suppose we don't have much of a choice."

She leads the three District 9 Victors back to the train. She hides it well, but Trisha is bursting with glee over Effie's failure. Chrissy reads some more, back in her compartment until she can't bear the confined space any longer. She grabs her sword and knives and jumps down from the train, heading into the forest. She climbs over the fence that's supposedly electrified and jogs through the trees.

She stops in a clearing and grips her sword. Then she starts to practice, spinning, slashing, stabbing in a whirlwind, doing a hackneyed job of trimming nearby bushes. She drops her sword and rolls forward, rapidly hurling three knives across the clearing where they stick in a straight line down a tree's trunk. She grabs her sword and runs over to snatch her knives back, and that's when she notices she has an audience. She angles her sword towards the chest of the young man, a few years older than herself. His gray eyes watch her lazily.

"That was impressive," he says, and he sounds it. Chrissy looks at him coldly for a long moment, and then lowers her sword. "I'm Haymitch," he says. "Haymitch Abernathy, winner of the Quarter Quell."

She surveys him, her dark green eyes locking with his bright gray ones. "I'm Chrissy van Pelt, winner of the fifty-fifth Hunger Games," she says.

"Congratulations," Haymitch says sarcastically.

"Likewise," Chrissy says, irritated.

"Shouldn't you be back in your train or making a Victory speech?" Haymitch says caustically.

"Shouldn't you have been at my speech today, instead of leaving Effie Trinket to ask everyone and their brother if they'd seen you?" Chrissy retorts.

Haymitch laughs cynically. "She was asking around about me?"

"Yes."

"That's good. I hope her wig is frayed."

"I hope so too. That thing looks ridiculous," Chrissy says, wrinkling her nose at the thought of Effie.

"Yes, well, we can't all be as well-groomed as those in District 9." Haymitch narrows his eyes at her. Chrissy can't understand Haymitch's sudden defense of Effie.

"Well maybe if you didn't spend so much time wallowing around with the pigs in coal dust..."

Haymitch glares at her. "Because you hunters are so sophisticated yourselves, gorging your fat guts on deer intestines."

_Did he really just say that?_ Chrissy feels her skin start to itch with anger. _As if these District 12 peasants were the picture of moral ethics? _"Oh, please. If you District 12 people had a deer gut, you'd kill each other to get to suck on it."

"Is that so?" Haymitch steps closer to her, glaring fiercely with those dangerous gray eyes. Chrissy met his hard, furious gaze with her own. "Yeah, it is. You people are pathetic."

"At least we don't take a maniac pleasure in mutilating our enemies!"

Ouch. If he had kicked Chrissy in the shin he couldn't have bruised her more. Reminding her of her crimes in the Arena? That's cruel. And frankly, it pisses her off. Chrissy draws back to smack Haymitch, and he tenses to block her, but someone grabs her arm from behind.

"For the love of Panem, Chrissy. You haven't even been in District 12 for a day yet, and you're already smacking their kids around."

"Jamir! He was asking for it." Chrissy is still glaring at Haymitch.

"I don't doubt it." Jamir regards Haymitch with distaste. "Haymitch Abernathy has a reputation for being snarky, arrogant and desensitized."

Haymitch curls his lip at Jamir, a look of despising on his face. Chrissy hisses at Haymitch and lunges at him, still held back by Jamir.

"You get back to District 12 before I report you," Jamir says coldly to Haymitch.

They scowl at each other for a minute or two before Haymitch stalks off. Jamir lets go of Chrissy's arm and she spins around, anger boiling in her blood.

"You need to learn to stay out of trouble," Jamir says. "I can't be running around, trying to fetch you back before someone realizes you're gone and breaking the rules."

Chrissy makes a face and then goes and collects her knives silently and follows Jamir back to the train without saying a word. She showers and puts on the same black dress and outfit she'd worn in her first music video. No one thought they needed to waste another new dress on District 12. Kayanna, Jamir and Trisha are all dressed up too and they go back to the square, where it has been filled with small tables and chairs and a long table with an ancient cloth that had once been white. Trisha, Effie, Kayanna, Jamir, Chrissy and Haymitch are all to sit at the long table, while the rest of District 12 sit at various tables. Jamir tries to put Chrissy and Haymitch at opposite ends of the table, but Effie won't hear of it.

In an attempt to recover from her earlier humiliation, she puts the next to each other in the center, so the cameras will focus on them. They both shoot hateful looks at each other from the corner of their eyes. They sit and start talking in low voices, but no one pays much attention to their rising conversation until Chrissy throws her wine in Haymitch's face.

"You don't know anything, you stupid bastard!"

Haymitch yelps in disbelief.

"Hey! Come on, let's be civil," Effie cries. But Haymitch is having none of this. He grabs a bowl of salad dressing and turns it over Chrissy's head.

"And you're so smart and kind-hearted, bitch?"

Chrissy smacks Haymitch and he pushes her back and then she jumps him and Kayanna and Jamir have to pull them apart while Effie and Trisha look on with a mixture of fury and horror. Jamir hauls Haymitch back, snarling and fighting to get free, and Kayanna slams Chrissy down in her seat.

"You WILL sit here. You WILL be civil. And if you do ANYTHING out of line, you WILL be punished most severely," Kayanna whispers furiously. She grabs a napkin and some water and hands them to Chrissy saying, "Clean yourself up."

After Effie and Jamir talk to Haymitch, he returns, drying his dark curly hair with a napkin. Effie jabs him with her elbow and he gives her a baleful look.

"I'm sorry for insulting your family," Haymitch says grudgingly to Chrissy.

Kayanna pinches her shoulder from behind when she doesn't seem to be giving an appropriate response. "I'm sorry I dumped wine on you, even if you deserved it," Chrissy says.

Haymitch snorts and shakes his head, sitting down.

They finish the meal in silence and Chrissy dreads having to weather Trisha's lecture, which is surely coming as soon as they're out of earshot of Effie and Haymitch, who are having their own little argument when the District 9 group gets up to leave. Sure enough, as they enter the train, Trisha starts in on Chrissy. Chrissy keep walking.

"Do you realize how much you've humiliated me? The whole District? Fighting! With another Victor! The audacity! I can't believe it!"

Chrissy spins around. "He insulted my family. No one gets to do that," she hisses.

"I don't care if he insulted your entire ancestry! You were on live television! I hope you know what you've done to my career, I-"

"Trisha?" Chrissy interrupts. "Shut up." She slams her door in Trisha's face, leaving her to gape at the door, too stunned to speak outside the room.

When Trisha finds her voice and starts yelling at Chrissy through the door, Chrissy's in the shower, washing the rest of the salad dressing from her hair and can't hear her. She stays in purposefully for a long time so Trisha can blow off her steam and Chrissy doesn't have to listen. When she comes out, steam billows out of the bathroom and fills her bedroom. She pulls on some shorts and a tank top and lies down on the bed. A slight jostle tells her they're on the move again. She opens up the window, relieved to feel the cold air on her cheeks. Ever since her return from the arena, she's had a thing about sleeping temperatures. She can't sleep unless the room is freezing. She pulls the covers up to her throat and closes her eyes, letting sleep claim her.


	21. Guilty Apologies

Thanks out there to all my readers! Your comments mean a ton! So, as promised, here's the next chapter. So, we finally get a glimpse of what's going on inside Chrissy's head and a deep foreshadowing of what's to come in the not-so-distant future...

* * *

It goes on much the same as District 12 for her next 11 interviews. Minus the fighting, of course. The other Victors are either civil to her, or so incapacitated from years of drink or drugs that they can't even focus on her long enough to learn her name, much less remember what she was here for. The nightmares are getting worse and worse as they approach District 1. Chrissy has a constant stomach ache and her heart is suffering from stabs of pain at irregular intervals throughout a typical hour. She makes apologies in Districts 11, 10, 7, and 2. And then the day she dreads comes. District 1.

She wakes screaming from a nightmare the morning of her last speech, tangled up in the sheets and soaked in sweat. She trips on her sheets as she stumbles into the bathroom and hurls into the toilet. She slumps back against the wall, pressing her cheek against the cool tile. Its several minutes before she pulls herself to her fee to shower and dress in the cargo pants and tight black tank top laid out for her. She runs a comb through her hair and slouches down to the breakfast car.

"You look awful," Trisha says.

Chrissy glares weakly at her and sits down. "I didn't sleep much."

"Well I hope you're ready. Today is your last speech."

Chrissy gives a sigh of relief. One last speech and then she can slip back into her quiet and miserable anonymity.

But District 1 proves to be as horrible as Chrissy had imagined. Everyone is glaring at her with unmasked hatred as she steps up to the podium. The families look like they're barely holding back from gutting her themselves. She lowers her head and starts her speech off quietly.

"I won the Games, but that doesn't mean I was really better than all the other competitors. A lot of winning the Games is just luck. But your tributes ran out of luck when my name was pulled. I killed them, but I did worse than that. I made them suffer in a way no child should ever have to suffer. I tortured them, looking for some sort of vengeance for the horrible death of my own little sister, Farah.

"I was too sick to take her place when her name was pulled, and her death has haunted me ever since. I wanted revenge. I was angry at District 1, but I was also angry at myself. Angry because I couldn't protect her. And I let that anger consume me and fuel all my actions and it took me over and destroyed who I was.

"What I did to Sparkle and Topaz was unforgivable. I let the arena turn me into the very thing I loathed the most: someone who kills for their own desire, who mutilates and torments other human beings and derives some sort of sick pleasure from it. I despised myself that day, when I won. And I have despised myself every day since then. I let violence turn me into something I wasn't. I know you won't forgive me, and in all honesty I don't deserve it. I would hate me to if I were you. But I want you to know that I regret. I regret so much."

A lump grew in Chrissy's throat and she couldn't speak anymore, so Kayanna led her off the stage.

"That was great, Chrissy," Kayanna says. "Much better than your ones for 5,7,10 and 11."

Chrissy doesn't respond, for fear she might start crying. She simply nods. For dinner that night, Xenia has prepared a short, silver dress with the straps lined with false diamonds. It's pleated from her chest down, and there's s string of pearls for a necklace. Personally Chrissy can't stand it, but she doesn't have much of a choice. She sits down at a large table with past Victors from District 1. There are so many, they need two tables to seat them all, plus Trish, Jamir, Kayanna and Ferdinand, the announcer for District 1. She's very quiet, which is unusual for her. The District 1 Victors seem fine with leaving her alone and only throwing loathing looks her way every few minutes.

She's sitting next to Cashmere, who has scooted to the far edge of her seat to avoid touching or even being in near Chrissy. This is a far cry from Esmeralda, on her other side, who is doing her best to bump, stab and spill food on Chrissy as possible. If Chrissy didn't feel such horrendous guilt for the deaths of Topaz and Sparkle, she'd have to challenge Esmeralda. She tries to focus on her desert, a sort of chocolate jello with whipped cream and fresh strawberries. It's the most delicious thing she'd ever tasted. She wants to pocket some for Lisa and Cooper, even if she'd have to send it with someone else to get them to take it.

After dinner, Chrissy fights her way out of crowd that seems to be pushing wantonly, murmuring apologies, unusually subdued. She manages to get back to the train without being killed, which is honestly a big relief. Trisha also seems to be nervous about the fury pulsing through the District 1 crowd as she ushers Chrissy into the train, quickly followed by Jamir and Kayanna. They all hurry down the hall into the dining car and flop down into the padded seats.

"I thought they'd kill us!" Kayanna gasps, pushing back some flyaway hairs.

"Us? They only wanted me!" Chrissy exclaims. "Esmeralda nearly took my fingers off twelve times with her steak knife!"

"She was being completely immature," Trisha agrees quietly.

"Personally I hate the whole business. Obviously the Districts are going to be nothing but hostile to the one child that managed to survive. Their question is always, 'Why her? Why not my kid? Why does she get to live?' and the Victor has no answer. There is no answer except that they were lucky, or more aggressive," Jamir puts in.

Chrissy twists a napkin in her hands. She's never felt worse than she has tonight.

"I should be getting to bed, we have a long train ride tomorrow," Chrissy says, her voice barely audible.

That's when Trisha and Kayanna get this odd look on their faces. They won't meet Chrissy's eyes and they act reluctant to speak. Chrissy looks hard at them.

"What is it?"

"We're going to stop at the Capitol first," Trisha says at last, sounding revolted.

Jamir looks wildly from Kayanna to Trisha. "No, not that! Not to Chrissy! You can't let them!"

"Let them what?" Chrissy cries.

Jamir looks at Kayanna and Trisha, disgusted, and then exits the room, pushing past Chrissy harshly. She looks back at Trisha and Kayanna.

"What's Jamir talking about?" she says, her voice rising. She can't take a whole lot more before she cripples under all the emotional strain.

"President Snow just wants to talk to you," Trisha says. "Now get to bed, you need some sleep."

"But-"

"Go!" Kayanna says unexpectedly.

Chrissy is tired, and doesn't feel like arguing, so she goes. When she gets into her room, she realizes she's had her period, and ruined her dress. This is the last straw. She gets into the shower and tears start rolling down her cheeks and entwining with the streams of water tracing paths down her angular face. She can taste the salt on her lip and she brushes them away angrily. She changes and flops down onto her bed and curls up. That night in her dreams, she's back in the District 1 crowd. It gets more and more violent until they start to tear her apart, and yell accusations at her. Esmeralda grabs a knife and others follow suit, cutting her up until she's bled her life out all over the ground. She wakes up and her face is wet with tears and her pillow is soaked.


	22. Government Interferrence

The next day she pulls on some lose jeans and a white t-shirt, feeling casual and enters the solemn dining car. No one is talking. Jamir isn't even there. Chrissy feels a cold knot working its way into her stomach. There's something her team isn't telling her, that much is clear, and it's something very bad. She tries in vain to push away these feelings and takes a crescent roll. They arrive back in the Capitol shortly after. Bile rises in Chrissy's throat at being back here. Every atom of her being is telling her to flee back into the train and go as fast as she can back to District 9, but she forces herself to unstick her foot from the first step down and get off the train.

Chrissy turns to Trisha, "Where are Jamir and Kayanna?"

"They're not coming," Trisha replies grimly.

Chrissy opens her mouth to ask where they're going, but she knows that Trisha won't answer. Trisha leads her down the sidewalk and down to a deceptively plain Capitol building. They go in, and the dark halls are lined with thick wood doors. Chrissy wonders with a shiver of fear and revulsion what goes on behind them. Fear is choking her speech now; she doesn't think she could summon the words to ask Trisha what they're doing here. This fear is so much more than anything she felt in the arena, a kind of apprehensive terror. As they walk, a man in a purple suit exits one of the rooms. He looks from Trisha to Chrissy and shakes his head, giving Chrissy a pitying look. She can only stare back, the fear shinning in her eyes before Trisha pushes her onward. Trisha knows her way around this building, and leads her swiftly on green high heels to a door that doesn't appear to stand out from any of the others. She knocks, and from the dark unknown comes "Enter."

Trisha opens the door and pushes Chrissy in. "Here she is, President."

The nasty, gnarled old man across from Chrissy, sitting at a thick oaken desk folds his hands together.

"Thank you Trisha. You may go."

Trisha nods and exits so fast she trips on the ornate, hand-woven rug. President Snow gestures to a wooden chair in front of his desk.

"Please, Chrissy, sit."

She doesn't take her eyes off him as she sits, wariness in every move she makes. "What do you want with me?"

"Nothing more than we've asked from a few other…special Victors."

"Special?" Chrissy raises an eyebrow. The apprehension is so strong now, she's sure her breakfast will be making a reappearance any moment. She can't recall a case of any Victor being called back to the Capitol for a private meeting with the President. Which can only mean one thing: This is something they don't want the public to know about. Which means they can do to her whatever they want.

"Victors like yourself, with a unique presence and…pleasing looks."

The idea throws itself into Chrissy's mind, but the prospect is so repulsive, her subconscious rejects it immediately. The President calls a man into the room. He's middle aged, slightly pot-bellied, with small, wire-rim glasses and a dumb looking mustache. He's bald and has a strange kind of nervous air about him. He's rubbing his hands together, as if he's looking forward to a large prize.

"No." Chrissy gets to her feet so fast she knocks the chair over. "You're not asking me to do that."

"You'll be paid," the President says smoothly. "Gerard can pay you most handsomely for your...services. You see, Chrissy, you've been in great demand her in the Capitol. Men adore your fire, and would pay well to feel that they had…broken you. Broken through that arrogant shell of yours. Melted the heart of stone and ice. And of course, if you refuse, there will be consequences." President Snow's eyes flash dangerously, but Chrissy's fear has vanished, leaving only disgust and disdain for both the President and the pathetic little man next to him.

"Not a chance. There's nothing you can do to me that you haven't done already. There's nothing you can do that can be worse than what I've already been through, than what I go through every day, every night. Nightmares all the times, the only relief is morphling or death, and then I get to relive it when I come back to train next year's tributes. I killed for you. I suffered unbelievably for you. I lost my family's respect and love for you. But I will not, damn it, be a fucking prostitute for you! That is absolutely disgusting, and I loathe anyone who would even consider paying to sleep with a teenage girl! Low, cowardly, stomach churning parasites! I spit on them, and dare them to live my life and come out sane!"

Chrissy turns and strides from the room, barely taking time to register the shocked look on Gerard's face. As she slams the door, she's almost certain she heard, "Oh, there is so much more I can do to break you, Chrissy van Pelt."

Fear floods her and she starts running, trying to find her way out, desperate to get back to District 9 and away from this hell-hole. Trisha must have heard her thumping, panicked footsteps, because she runs into Chrissy coming the other way.

"Chrissy! You're alright! The door's this way," she points. "How did it go?" she asks anxiously.

"_How'd it go? HOW'D IT GO?_ How dare you! You knew! You all knew what you were sending me into, what they were going to ask of me! You…you traitor! I thought you were on my side! And then you go and do this? I was right from the beginning. I hate you Trisha, and everything you stand for. You're pathetic, and weak, and petty. I can't stand to look at you. Don't speak to me again, ever."

Trisha flinches away from Chrissy's harsh words, her hurt registering in her pale brown eyes. Chrissy shoves her aside and struggles to keep from running as she heads for the door. In the hovercraft, Kayanna is waiting with the same anxious expression on her face, and Jamir is still nowhere to be seen.

"Chrissy…?"

Chrissy spits at Kayanna's feet, and goes into her compartment, slamming the door. Once she's inside, she yells. Yells for the unfairness of it all. She swears and yells and punches the mirror above her dresser. It shatters and cuts span out from her knuckles, rivers of blood running down her arm and dripping onto the carpet. She drops to her knees, cradling her hand and swearing softly to herself. She forces herself to get up and go into the bathroom, where she rinses her wound and binds it with gauze. She feels sick to her stomach, and has a powerful need to be home, to be assured that there are some things that are normal in her life and will remain constant. Like District 9. She doesn't bother changing, just throws herself down on her bed, knowing she won't be able to sleep for the hard lump in her belly. She lies on her back and watches the stars whiz by in flashy blurs as the train whisks her home, much too slow.


	23. Rain of Fire

The next day she leaps out of bed as soon as the train has stopped. She grabs her bag, not bothering to brush her hair or even smooth out the clothes she laid in all night. Bounding down the steps into the early morning fog, she's pressed on by an urgency she doesn't understand. Her team doesn't bother to follow her, they let her race ahead. She jogs into town and looks around. Ah, normalcy. She sees a girl she used to know from school, Angel. She walks over to her, suddenly having an urgent need to assure herself that everything really is alright.

"Angel!" she calls

Angel turns to her, her eyes widen in shock and something else.

"Angel." Chrissy jogs over to her. "How are you? How's your family? Selling lots of…what does your father do again?"

Angel looks at her. "You don't know?" Her voice is barely audible. "Oh, my God. You don't know. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." Angel is shaking her head and backing away. "I have to get to school." She turns and hurries off.

_Don't know? Don't know what?_ Dread creeps into Chrissy's veins and she thinks of what the Capitol could have done. The house? No, she doesn't care about the house. Friends? She doesn't have any friends. Family? Alarm seizes Chrissy and she drops her back, sprinting towards the spot where her family's house used to stand. What stands there now is a charred heap. A pile of ashes. Chrissy screams.

"No! Cooper, Lisa! Mamma! Daddy! No! Damn it! Fucking damn you!" she howls at President Snow.

She falls to her knees, ignoring the passing neighbors who linger to watch and wonder if they ought to do something. They don't exist in her world. Chrissy's world has shrunk to this house, and the memories and people that resided there. Gone. All gone. She crawls forward, riffling through the ashes, looking for something, anything that survived. All that remains is a soot covered brick pile that was the chimney and fireplace. _No, no, no, no! It's not possible! Surely not even the Capitol…! _But even as she thinks that, Chrissy knows they would. Tears can't even fall, because she's too shocked and overwhelmed. She just sits there. Jamir and Kayanna pass by her and hesitate. They are her mentors, but she pretty much disowned them before she left. She just slumps there, unmoving, impervious to the brick bits embedding themselves in her knees. The longer she sits, the more she begins to sort out her feelings. Blinding fury sears her so brightly she can almost feel it burning her skin and eyes. She hates the Capitol, more than hates them. There isn't a word strong enough to describe how Chrissy feels about President Snow in the Capitol. Hot tears of rage force themselves out of her eyes. She rises to her feet and looks at the remains of her house blowing away as a stray dog runs by, raising a breeze.

"I will destroy you President Snow, and everything you stand for," she vows under her breath. "I will end this reign of terror, where the government can kill people wantonly and without reason."

She stalks back to where she dropped her backpack, dark anger and resolution radiating from her every movement. Shouldering the now muddy pack, she passes her team without batting an eye and goes into her house, slamming the door.

Green eyes fly open, terror screaming from their depths. Cold sweat soaks tan skin and white sheets. Curly blonde hair in wild tangles. Tears staining sharply tilted cheeks, dripping off onto a tender, bruised breast. Brushed away with a gauze-wrapped hand. But they keep coming. Always, all night, coming. No respite, no sleep. Eyes of blue and brown and green, brother, mother, father, sister. Tonight the ghosts are about, but only those with special vision see. Only those whose hearts are opened wide with pain and loss.

Chrissy's eyes are dark and bruised with lack of rest the next morning. All night the faces of those she strove so hard to protect swam before her eyes.

Calling out, "Chrissy! Chrissy! Why didn't you help us? Why did you anger the Capitol?"

And Cooper's soft face, still holding that child plumpness crying, "It's so hot, Chrissy, so hot! It burns!"

Her throat is ragged from weeping and her bed is soaked with sweat and tears and snot. She staggers into the bathroom, looking like she's majorly hung-over. Four days of this, and Chrissy's almost ready for another shot of morphling to make the pain subside, even if for just a few precious hours. But something deep inside her rebels from the idea of handing herself over to a drug and giving up on being able to handle things herself. So instead she decides to go for a walk through town; there are some things she needs to do. She puts on some dark jeans and a plain brown t-shirt. She touches her ears, where the holes remain from her piercing. She riffles through her stuff and finds a small plastic bag that holds the pitiful amount of jewelry she owns. A clay pendant on a leather string her mother gave her, a bracelet Lisa gave her for her birthday, and a pair of fake ruby earrings. These she puts on, and deep in the mud of her soul, she feels a dull stirring that once she liked to feel girly. Once in a long, long while, she liked to feel pretty. But it felt so far away it was like she had watched another person feel that. Because she wasn't that person anymore. The Capitol had turned her into a messed up, druggie killer. Today though, she is determined to look presentable, by her own standards. She brushes her hair and washes her face and tugs on some boots and slings her bag over her shoulder, because she might need it. Okay, slim chance, but maybe. _God, I'm becoming more paranoid by the day!_ She thinks. But she takes the bag anyway.

It takes all her courage to walk down that main road, bumpy and cracked and so messed up hardly anyone walked on it. Most people preferred to walk around it. Chrissy felt a connection with the battered road as she walked down the center of it. At first, shame burns her ears. She, the Capitol mutt who allowed her family to burn to death in their beds. She, who had walked away from her house, alone, needing no comfort. She who lived in Victor's Village and had as good as become a recluse. But then her arrogance kicks in, her defense. She raises her head to look each passerby in the eye.

_I am your Victor. I am District 9. Look, look at what the Capitol does. But I am me, and I won't let you or anyone else break me._

She strides down the road and into the mortuary. She rings the bell, because no one is at the counter. A tall man with a hollow face and dull eyes comes out.

"Yes?" he drawls. But it sounds more like 'Why the hell should I help you? I'm busy.'

Well Chrissy can play the attitude game.

"I want funerals for my mother and siblings."

"But there aren't any bodies." He says it as if it were obvious to anyone with half a brain.

Chrissy steps forward aggressively.

"I don't care. I want funerals."

She pulls a wad of cash from her bag and tosses it carelessly on the counter.

The man's eyes spark with interest.

"As you wish," he says faintly.

"That's right. I want coffins too. With silk linings. And I want invitations. For everyone in town."

"They won't come."

"Not my problem. I want to say they were invited. And they shouldn't come for me. They should come for my family. They never killed anyone."

The man is counting the money.

He looks up at her and Chrissy thinks that perhaps he'll tell her that there's too much, because she has ridiculously overpaid, but all he says is, "Come with me."

He leads her to the back of the store and Chrissy can't help the hand that jumps towards the knife in her boot. He shows her a section of wall with different woods and linings nailed to it.

"Choose."

Chrissy chooses white for all of them. Pale blue silk for Cooper, pale green for Lisa and rose pink for her mother. Brass handles.

"White?" the man says, skeptical.

"White. Because they were murdered. They are angels now."

She can feel the man's shock that she would dare suggest the glorious and venerated Capitol would kill unjustly. But she doesn't care. She's a Victor, and now that she's been on public television, she dares the Capitol to kill her. And even if they did, she can't help but think that it might be a favor.

"I want it Friday."

"But today is Tuesday! That only gives us 2 days!"

Chrissy tosses him another wad of cash. "Friday."

The man pockets the money, still looking disgruntled. He leads her back to the front room. He pulls a dusty old box out from under the counter and pushes it towards Chrissy. She opens it and it's different kinds of paper for funeral invitations. She chooses the most decorated one and slaps it down on the counter.

"Friday, 5:00 pm. Formal wear," she lists.

The man scratches it down. "Everyone is invited?"

"Everyone. Peacekeepers too. I want them to see what they did. Who they work for."

The man glances up at her with old green eyes. "You're treading on dangerous grounds, girlie. Even Victors aren't immune."

"What will they do? Kill me? Even death can't be worse than the Hunger Games."

The man looks at her, and she can tell he doesn't believe her, or really care, so she signs the receipt he slides across the counter to her and walks out.


	24. Goodbyes

She's passing the mercantile when she sees something of interest. A sign, proclaiming new wares. One of them is cigarettes. She walks in and the rusty bell above the door clangs. She goes up to the counter where a plump, gray haired old woman is sitting on a stool that it looks like it's about to bust under her rear.

"How much for cigarettes?" Chrissy asks.

The woman gives her a concerned look. "You seem a little young to be buying cigarettes," she says. "What would-" she breaks off with a sharp intake of breath as she adjusts her glasses, which are too small for her wide face. "You're the Victor from this year!"

Chrissy feels a snag of distaste. "Yeah. That's me."

The woman scratches her chin. "You know cigarettes are addicting."

"But they're a drug, aren't they? Less incapacitating than morphling?"

"Much less."

"Then they can numb the pain?" She hates the way the words sound coming out. She sounds like a little child, seeking reassurance, feeling lost.

"I don't know."

Chrissy glances back at the cigarettes. "Keep those in stock."

As she walks out, she sees a selection of music and books. She looks back to the woman in her shabby gray dress and off-white, stained apron and decides to splurge. It's not like she's shy on cash anymore. She grabs a copy of each of the twelve books and a fistful of music sheets and plop them on the counter.

"How much?"

The woman seems to be in shock. Chrissy doubts that anyone has bought so much at her store in one outing ever before. Books are incredibly expensive here.

"Um…$120."

Chrissy slaps a two hundred dollar bill down. "Keep the change."

She slips the merchandise into her bag and leaves. She still feels weak, going to drugs to keep her together. She promises herself she'll wait until she's falling apart at the seams to use drugs again. Little does she know, that day is going to come much sooner than she thinks.

Her visit into town brings up something else that's been bothering her: her physical condition. She doesn't like the loss of muscle. It makes her feel vulnerable, and that can't be tolerated. She feels a glow somewhere inside at her latest resolution: Project muscle mass. It will at least give her something to do. She starts to train: running, lifting weights, sword practice and knife throwing. She's determined to keep up her physical strength, and she needs those endorphins released during physical activity. She keeps this up for weeks and is pleased to see her lean muscle returning, her body resuming its usual lithe shape.

Looking in the mirror she sees a glimpse of herself the way she used to be. Proud. Strong. Cunning. Of course, she still is those things, on the outside. By early spring, she can nail the crosshairs of a window from fifty feet. But a deep dread is starting to thrum in her veins. She'll be a mentor this year, and the reaping is only months away. If anything, she's dreading it more than ever. Which child will she mentor? Which child will have their life torn away? Or worse, which one will survive? Chrissy has come to the opinion that surviving was the worst thing that ever happened to her. She should have killed herself in the arena, and if she had it all to do over again, she would. But that's not a choice anymore. She can't even chose to end her own life anymore.

But before her masterful return to deadly condition is the funeral for her family. She flicks through her Capitol dresses, which, she reflects, she should have burned. Maybe she still will. She takes out a black one that comes halfway past her knees and closely resembles a large sheet wrapped around her body. With it she wears a black choker necklace, her fake ruby earrings and her black combat boots. She makes her way down to the village square, acutely aware of the Victors behind her, but ignoring them. Three blazing white coffins lie at the foot of the stage, each with a wreath of flowers over the top. A lot of people have come, more than Chrissy expected. She gets up on the stage and stands in front of the crowd, reminded of her terrible public speaking skills.

"So, you all came for my family, hopefully, and not for refreshments. I know you didn't come for me. I just wanted to give Cooper, Lisa and Mary the burial they deserved. Lying in the ashen remains of our house isn't good enough for them. Unlike me, they never hurt anyone. They didn't deserve to die. I should have been able to protect them, but all of Panem has seen how good I am at that," she gave a bitter laugh. She takes a deep breath and continues. "But really, I miss them a lot, and I want their friends to be able to say respects. And even if you have nothing to say, thanks for coming. They were always better people than me. I ruined myself trying to protect them from the world, and I failed anyway. But don't shun them for my shortcomings.

"I just want there to be things I don't forget about them, and it's easier if there's lots of people to remember. Like how much Lisa liked blue, and the way Cooper's face looked when he was focused, and the song my mom used to hum when she was doing laundry…stuff like that. So, I guess just say respects and whatever." Chrissy jumps off the stage, choking up over her family. She watches as first one, then more people walk up to the coffins, whisper something, bow and then walk away. The crowd began to dissipate and Chrissy walked up to Cooper's.

"Cooper, you were always my favorite. You were kind and compassionate and you didn't belong in this cruel world of smoke and mirrors and lies. You could never have survived without getting your heart broken, and when you did, I would have been there for you. I'll do my best to never forget your curly, copper-colored hair, for which you were named, or the line between your eyebrows that appeared when you were confused. I'll try to always remember your favorite color, orange, because it was the color of the fruit you got on your birthday, and your favorite book, The Giving Tree. You always felt bad for the tree, and the first time you read it you cried. I'll always remember that. Good-bye, my sweet brother."

She speaks clearly and audibly, she wants people to hear, and remember what she said about Cooper. She kisses the edge of his coffin and moves on to Lisa's.

"Lisa, you always hated me, because we were both so hard-headed. You refused to believe I really cared, underneath my stone-hearted exterior. But you never knew what I endured to keep you safe. To protect you. You were always there for Cooper, at school you defended him, and called him on your team for kickball, when everyone knew he'd strike out. You were artistic and thoughtful and you would have grown into a beautiful young woman. I'm sorry my actions denied you that chance." She kisses Lisa's coffin as well, and moves on to the last one.

"Mary. Mother. You were too weak and unsure of yourself to stand up to Father. You never protected me, only sang and kissed my wounds when it was over. But you didn't know either, what I suffered. You went about your life quietly, a wallflower, doing chores, getting no thanks and asking for none. And I have to say, sometimes I hated you. Hated you for letting Father abuse me the way he did, and never speaking a word for me. For letting me blunder and struggle and trip my way through life, cutting and bruising myself all along the way. I wish you had talked to me about Farah's death. I wish you'd been there for me like I needed you. But I forgive you. I never asked about your life before you were married; maybe you were once wild and carefree. Maybe something happened to change you. Maybe father beat you down. But now I see you were there for me as much as you could be, in your own quirky little way. No matter your faults, you loved us, and did what you could for us, and that's what really matters in the end. I thought I was being strong by proving that I didn't need you. But I was just being cruel by denying your love, and there were some nights I almost cried for it. But I wouldn't let myself. I'll never forget what you did for me, but I'm sure what you didn't do will fade eventually."

She presses her forehead against her mother's coffin edge and kisses it and then waves her hand and the mortician's helpers come to bear the coffins away. She sits on the edge of the seat of the old carriage, bumping and jolting along to the cemetery. She watches as they lower the coffins down into pre-dug holes. A few people trail after them. She tosses the customary first handful of dirt onto each. She wipes her hands onto her Capitol dress and then pries off her shoes and walks home barefoot.


	25. The Third Reaping

The night after the funerals is rough, and spent in silent thought. She doesn't sleep, she thinks. She runs through her mind all the things she never wants to forget about her family. Around 1 am, she gets out of bed and runs downstairs in her nightgown to grab a notepad and pencil and she spends the rest of the night on the couch, writing things down, suddenly gripped by a terror that she'll forget her family now that they're gone. As the sun is coming up, she falls asleep, clutching the notepad. That morning she dreams of memories.

The days fly by and the nights drag on for eons until the reaping. Chrissy passes out on the couch, having worked herself to death that day, trying to forget. Her nightmare is deep in the climax of terror when a falling sensation jolts her awake. She sits up, realizing after a brief scream that she's rolled off the edge of the couch. She curls her knees up to her chest and huddles on the floor.  
"I thought you might be having a rough night."

She swivels her head to look at the armchair by the couch. Jamir is leaning on it, giving her an acerbic smile. "Gee, thanks for the help," she says sarcastically.

"Hey, who do you think rolled you off the couch?"

"It was a reflex." Jamir rolls his eyes and throws himself down in the chair. Chrissy pulls herself back onto the couch and crosses her legs.

"So what now?"

"Now?" Jamir runs a hand through his short black hair. "Now we wait."

And wait they do. They sit there, mostly silent, until the first rays of treasonous sunlight penetrate the windows. Then Jamir gets to his feet and heads for the door saying "See you at the party."

"Yeah, I'll be the one in red."

Chrissy stuffs herself into some rough-cut brown pants and a blue shirt. She's not dressing up for this. She runs a brush through her hair and trots down the stairs. She walks as slowly as she can justify towards the town center, her feet feeling as if she were pulling each one through half-set cement. Each step gets slower. And interesting thought occurs to her as she shuffles to the stage. If she keeps moving in half-increments, she'll never reach the stage. But she does, all too quickly. She mounts the steps and sits down behind Trisha and the mayor. Jamir is sitting across from her, his hair slicked back, wearing all black. The mayor gives his speech on the Dark Days and past Victors and then he announces Jamir and Chrissy's names. Jamir stands as his name is called, but Chrissy sets her jaw and doesn't budge. Trisha flashes her a look before turning back to the crowd.

"Ladies first!" she chirps manically. She reaches into the bowl and pulls a strip of paper. "Luciana Cecentire!"

A fifteen year old girl, pale and red-haired, makes her way out of the crowd and walks up the stage on jelly legs. Chrissy and Jamir both give her a nod and feel their hearts sink. She doesn't stand a chance. Trisha's reaching into the boy's bowl now.

"Yossarian Jin!"

A mother's scream penetrates the air. Chrissy could swear. Yossarian is Lee's older brother. He's seventeen and two months away from safety. His mother has fought her way through the crowd and is clinging to his arm, sobbing. He gently pries her off of him and walks up to the stage, stony-faced. Another woman puts her arm around Yossarian's mother and leads her away. Chrissy gives him a nod, respect flashing in her eyes. As Yossarian turns back to the crowd, Chrissy throws Jamir a lost look. She was obligated to make sure at least one of the Jin boys got home safely. But somehow she didn't think that was going to happen. 1 in 24 chance that Yossarian would make it back. And that was excluding starvation, dehydration, wounds and all the Gamemaker's surprises. Chrissy fights the urge to hang her head in her hands.

They walk to the train station and once more Yossarian's mother has to be dragged off of him so he can board the train. Chrissy bites her lip and goes inside and down to the dining car. Jamir is already there, with a glass of wine.

Suddenly desperate for an escape, Chrissy asks, "Can I have a glass of that?"

Jamir looks at her for a long moment. Then he holds out his own and says, "Try a sip."

She curiously sips the wine and makes a yakking sound. And for a moment she's a child again. "Eugh! That's awful!"

"That's what I thought you'd say," Jamir rolls his eyes good-naturedly.

She sits down to eat, and after a few minutes, Yossarian and Luciana troop in. Their heads are down and they won't look at each other. Chrissy watches their interactions for a few minutes: their silence, their refusal to speak to each other, the way they both draw back when they reach for the same dish, and realizes what's wrong. They know each other well. Probably have feelings for each other. As soon as she realizes this, she jumps up and pushes her chair back. Everyone looks up at her.

"I'm going to bed!" she announces loudly, and hurries out.

Back in her room, Chrissy kicks over a garbage can and sits on the edge of her bed, surrendering to the urge to hold her head in her hands.

"Oh, God," she groans. "Why? Why them?"

She rubs her temples. She sheds her clothes and slides into bed, lying awake for most of the night before she finally drifts off. In her dreams, she's back in the arena. But all of the tributes are people she knows: Farah, Cooper, Lisa, Mary, her father, Angel, Lee and Yossarian and Luciana lie dead and bleeding in the grass, their hands tangled up together. She wakes up, wide-eyed, to a cloudy, foggy morning. Perfect for her rapidly darkening mood. She dresses in all black: pants, shirt, shoes, earrings. Trisha raises an eyebrow when she sits down, but says nothing.


	26. Old Friends

They arrive at the Capitol later that day, and Yossarian and Luciana are pressed to the windows.

"Don't forget why we're here," Chrissy growls as the two exclaim over the city.

They both turn to look at her with dark eyes and Chrissy regrets having said anything to remind them of the Games. When they get off the train, Trisha leads Yossarian and Luciana away and Chrissy follows for a few steps before realizing that she doesn't know where to go. Jamir hits her lightly on the shoulder as he walks past. "Come on. It's time for your initiation."

Chrissy furrows her brow. "Initiation?"

"Yeah, you gotta meet the other Victors," Jamir says with bitter, sarcastic humor.

Chrissy follows Jamir swiftly. They go down to the basement of the building, into a room with green carpet and wood paneling. There's a strange table off to one side and a few leather couches and armchairs scattered about. Other Victors are lounging there, with bottles of alcohol or cigarettes, or staring off into nowhere, already on a morphine trip. Chrissy can't help but feel a sense of revulsion at being part of this group. Especially when Jamir turns to go. She spins around.

"Where are you going?" she asks, instantly ashamed of the panic in her voice.

"To get a drink," Jamir says. "Relax. I don't want to have to scrap you or anyone else off the floor when I get back."

A few heads turn to look disinterestedly at them, but Jamir ignores them and leaves. Chrissy looks around the room and sees Chaff drinking from a beer bottle, leaning against a wall near the table. She drifts over towards him. She hasn't really formed any real opinions about him, aside from he's a drunken loser, but she doesn't know anyone else. His face splits into a cruel smile when he sees her. "Well hey there, little sister. Long time, no see. How does it feel to be a Victor?"

In light of the situation, Chrissy immediately feels like slapping Chaff. She flashes Chaff a look, a glimpse through her eyes of the turmoil inside her.

"Do you really need to ask that question?"

Chaff gave a bitter laugh. "Bites, doesn't it little sister?"

"Bites like one of the squirrels from the last Quarter Quell."

Chaff laughed again, more real this time. "You're alright."

Chrissy moves to lean against the wall next to Chaff. He takes another drink from his bottle.

"You wanna tell me your name?"

"You know my name. It's all over the media. Everyone knows my name." There's no pride in her voice, rather, disgust.

"Yeah, but are _you _going to tell me?"

Before Chrissy can decide, a voice calls from across the room.

"Chaff you bastard; shouldn't you be training your victim?" Haymitch Abernathy strides across the room to smack Chaff on the back.

"Hell Haymitch, you almost made me choke," Chaff says irritably.

Haymitch grins and takes the bottle from Chaff, downing a good portion of it. He belches and hands it back.

"How goes the business?"

"Terrible," Chaff says, shaking his head. "Not a chance. I got a couple."

"Couple of what?" Haymitch asks.

"Couple of lovebirds," Chaff says, a bit of his grief and dismay leaking through his cover. "They were gonna be engaged soon."

"Shit," Haymitch breaths. "That's some bad luck."

"No kidding."

The three are silent for a long moment and then Chaff seems to shake it off and says, "Hey, you remember that girl I told you about? The one you'd just love? She's here."

Chaff nudges Chrissy on his other side and she puts on a face and says brightly, "Nice to see you again, Haymitch Abernathy, winner of the Quarter Quell."

Haymitch gags. "You!" He turns to Chaff. "Her?"

Chaff looks a bit confused. "You guys- oh, of course! The Victory Tour. I missed it."

"I kicked his ass," Chrissy says, smirking.

"Hardly!" Haymitch snorts. "We never finished it!"

"I would have won," Chrissy says, doubtless.

"You guys were fighting? During the Tour? That's good." Chaff shakes his head, amused, and takes another drink from the bottle.

"Maybe if you consider getting a few broken bones victory," Haymitch snarls.

"Maybe you want to finish it now!" Chrissy challenges, proudly flexing her new muscles.

"Hey, hey, hey, come on guys," Chaff said.

"No, I really want to smack the-" Chrissy shuts up because she spots Jamir coming back and she remembers her warning not to fight. Haymitch looks over his shoulder.

"Ah, can't get in trouble, can you?" he simpers.

Balling her fists, Chrissy strides across the room to where Jamir is sitting on the couch, chatting with another Victor.

"Excuse me, Jamir, may I please, please, turn Haymitch into a greasy spot on the carpet?" she asks loudly.

"Oh, please do," says the woman sitting next to Jamir. "He needs a girl to show him his place!"

Jamir looks a bit amused. "Sure. But remember you'll have to deal with Effie after you kill her only Victor."

"I'll keep that in mind," Chrissy says sweetly, with a wicked gleam in her eyes. She walks back over to Chaff and Haymitch. "Aright, where were we?"

Haymitch glowers at her. "I was about to smack the crap out of you, girl or not."

"Bring it on," Chrissy says, bracing herself.

For a moment it actually looks like they're going to kill each other and then Effie bounces in and says, "Time for dinner!"

Then she sees Chrissy and Haymitch looking not daggers, but machine guns at each other. "Haymitch! I warned you to stay away from her!" Effie cries indignantly. She strides over and grabs Haymitch's collar, dragging him off.

"See you later!" Chrissy waves cheerily, smiling, unable to contain her laughter.

Haymitch swears and tears away from Effie and everyone can hear their voices bouncing off the walls outside as they argue on their way to the elevator.

"Well that was easy," Chaff says, breaking the silence in the Victor's room. He and Chrissy snicker as they both head to the elevator to go up to their floors. The other Victors are moving off to their floors, like ghosts. Whatever lightness Chrissy felt over her encounter with Chaff and Haymitch vanishes as she rides the elevator up with a few druggies, Jamir and some other silent, grim-looking Victors. She looks at her feet, feeling ashamed of her behavior in the lounge.


	27. Dinner Disasters

Jamir's low voice breaks through her thoughts.

"You should get on good terms with these people. It's conceivable you could spend the rest of your life as a mentor."

She sighs dramatically. "But Haymitch is so…" she fished for an appropriate word. "Arrogant!" she settles on at last.

Jamir, to her surprise, chuckles. Then he leans down and says quietly in her ear, "So are you, my dear."

Chrissy draws away with an indignant gasp. She glares at Jamir, at the suggestion that she and Haymitch are anything alike. Jamir looks back at the elevator doors, but she can see the amused look on his face. If it had been anyone else, she would have told him to wipe that look off his face, or she'd smack it off. As it is, the elevator stops, and they get off to a ticked off-looking Trisha, who must have heard about her session with Haymitch. Chrissy braces herself for a rebuke, but Trisha marches over to Jamir and says, "We don't have a chance. These two were good friends back in 9; we'll never be able to get them to kill each other. Not to mention, Luciana is a merchant's child. She doesn't know the first thing about survival."

A solemn look draws over Jamir's face. "In the face of the Games, we are all brought to a new low," he says darkly. With that, they go to dinner. Yossarian and Luciana are already sitting at the table, eating heartily, but not looking as if they enjoyed any of it. Chrissy sits down across from Yossarian. She loads her plate and then feels a need to make some sort of small talk; she is a mentor after all.

"So, how went the parade?" she asks.

"Terrible," says Luciana. "Our costumes looked ridiculous. They had us decked out in some kind of animal skins. It was awful." Chrissy shakes her head.

"The parade isn't really important," Trisha says dismissively.

Yossarian stabs a bit of beef with enough venom to display he doesn't believe Trisha. The dinner is relatively uneventful, and afterwards Chrissy heads for her old room, when she remembers that she doesn't stay there anymore. It's now Luciana's room. She turns to Jamir.

"Where do I sleep?"

"Trisha will show you," Jamir says lazily, walking off.

"You've got to go get a hotel room" Trisha says. "Our floor is under construction, and there isn't a room for you right now."

Chrissy is taken aback. The Capitol took such good care of the tributes; she'd assumed the mentors got some of the same treatment.

"Do I get funds?"

"Yes." Trisha hands her a plastic card. "This automatically charges the Capitol. There is a limited amount, and after that it will start to charge your home funds."

Chrissy snags the card and goes down the elevator and out of the Training Center.

"This day just keeps getting better and better," she grumbles to herself, pushing through the colorful Capitol crowd. She walks as far as she can from the Training Center, and the obnoxious Capitol parties as she can, meaning she has to bunk at a decrepit- looking inn. _Oh, well, looks like home, _she thinks. She strolls in and slaps down the card.

"One room, single bed. For as long as the Games are on."

The man behind the counter looks to be in his late thirties, with shaggy brown hair and black eyeliner. He seems surprised to have a customer. Which, looking around this place, there's no wonder why. In the Capitol, this place must be on the brink. He takes her card and scans it. He hands it back along with a key.

"Enjoy your stay," he stammers.

"Gee, no need to be so effervescent," Chrissy growls under her breath, snatching the key and card away from him. She goes up into the room, and actually feels better at its weary appearance. It makes her feel much more comfortable than the fancy Capitol hotels. Those ones that seems so unreal. She can't help but hope none of the other Victors have thought to come out this far. Here she can be alone, and wrap herself up in a cocoon of solitude. She shakes her head and furrows her brow at the last thought.

"I've never been social, but now I'm practically a hermit," she mutters. "And now I'm talking to myself. Lovely."

She takes a long bath and meditates on how to get Yossarian back home. She has to of course; she owes it to Lee's mom. If she fails at this, she will have indirectly killed both of the woman's sons. She counts Lee because she would have killed him if she saw him, and she didn't do anything to protect him, even though she knew he was weak. But to make Yossarian come home, she will have to doom Luciana to death. And who's to say Yossarian will thank her for bringing him home? He'll probably hate her. But this isn't about him, she decides. His mother deserves to have at least one of her sons come home. As for Luciana, Chrissy pushes the girl out of her mind. One of them coming back is better than neither. _I WILL bring Yossarian home,_ she vows as she tugs an oversized t-shirt over her head and crawls into the rickety bed. For a long time she stares up at the long crack in the ceiling, meditating. Sometime in the night the line between thinking and dreaming become blurred and she woke up later, her heart racing with fear.


	28. Interviews Part 2 and Gin

The next morning passes in a blur of Capitol food and bloodshot eyes. Chrissy's beginning to think about wine and cigarettes again by the time she's assigned to help the two tributes come up with something to play on for their interviews. Luciana comes in first, looking frustrated and frazzled.

"Sit," Chrissy barks, gesturing to small couch.

Luciana sits and crosses her arms and legs, and glares at the wall.

"So, let's get started," Chrissy says, rubbing her hands together.

They have to try at least eight personalities before Chrissy is ready to swear at Luciana's stubbornness.

"Listen up girly," she snarls, "You need to open up here and be willing to try some things or you'll never get any sponsors! Now pay attention and do what I tell you!"

Luciana throws her hands up and slumps down on the couch. "I can't!" she cries. "It doesn't matter because I can't kill Yossarian!"

Chrissy massages her temples. "Look, I wouldn't worry about that. Odds are, someone will kill him first."

Luciana jumps to her feet. "You don't think either of us is coming back!" she accuses.

"Well Luciana, I'll do my best but you really have to look at the odds here."

"You make me sick!" Luciana shouts. "You Victors! You don't care about me or Yossarian! You just can't wait to get back to your beer and drugs!"

"That's not true!" Chrissy shrieks, inflamed by Luciana's words. "Do you have any idea what I go through every day? You have no idea what it's like to be in the arena! Once you go in, you NEVER come out. If you live, believe me, you won't thank me. Your life has been nothing more than a mockery of the Districts from the moment your name was pulled. So is mine, so is Jamir's, so are all of us. So sit down, shut up and let me help you before you die, or go in and die how you want! But if you live, you'll hate it. My greatest regret in the world is not killing myself when I had the chance."

Luciana looks absolutely abhorred as she turns on her heel and strides from the room. Chrissy shakes her head, feeling a surge of regret for all the unnecessary loss of life. She goes down to the lounge and sits next to Jamir on the ratty old couch.

"How do you deal with it?" she asks.

"Just finished with Luciana?"

"She's finished with me," Chrissy says and looks at her hands in her lap. "She said I didn't care about my tributes and…" she trails off.

Jamir sighs heavily. "You get some tributes like that. They're so angry at the world for what happened and you're the best person to take it out on. They never last long."

"That's comforting," Chrissy says sarcastically. Shrugging, Jamir takes another sip of gin. "Can I have some gin?" Chrissy asks.

"I thought you hated the stuff."

"Maybe it's an acquired taste."

Jamir leans over and pours her a glass. She takes a sip and hates the taste, but drinks it anyway. It's like fire in her belly and she likes it. She and Jamir sit in silence, watching the fire burn down to just embers in the fireplace.

When she gets back to her room, she goes right to bed, exhausted. Around three in the morning, she wakes up, soaked in a cold sweat, her pillow and sheets damp. Feeling sick, she drags herself out of bed and is violently sick into the toilet. She runs a bath and closes the windows so that steam fills the room. She stays into the water until it cools off, and then her skin is bright pink from the heat. She wraps herself in a towel and makes it to the sink before she's sick again. _Goddam gin, _she thinks. She collapses on the floor against the bathtub. She lies down and presses her flaming cheek against the cool tile floor. It's only when sunlight starts to filter through the filthy window that she realizes that she's spent the whole night on the bathroom floor.


	29. The 56th Hunger Games Begin

The three Training days pass by so fast Chrissy could swear they'd just arrived at the Capitol yesterday, but for the intense and continual exhaustion weighting down on her. Luciana and Yossarian do their interviews, and manage to pull it off, but neither of them is particularly memorable. On the day of the Games, Chrissy parts with her tributes on the roof. She shakes their hands, and whishes them well. She can't help lingering a bit longer on Yossarian, as if she could will him the strength to survive. Then they board the hovercraft and disappear. Jamir, Trisha and Chrissy are taken by a different hovercraft to the watching room. It has two large screens on the wall across from the door, and a dozen small screens around it. There's a panel of buttons and speakers on a counter below the screens. Two cushy, spinning chairs sit in front of the screens. Chrissy sits down in one of the chairs, noticing that a small breakfast has been laid out for them, and Jamir shuts the door.

"Where's Trisha going?" Chrissy asks.

"She'll be hopefully racking up sponsors for us," Jamir says, sitting down.

After a few hours, the screens flicker on. As the plates rise up, Chrissy sees that the two main screens are for Yossarian and Luciana, and each of the other small screens hold an image of one of the other tributes. And the arena is exactly the opposite of Chrissy's. It's a frozen wasteland of snow and ice with no visible cover. The tributes are dressed in puffy white coats with hoods, pants and boots. As soon as the gong goes off, Yossarian and Luciana bolt away, as they'd been instructed. Although Yossarian grabs a backpack before leaving, a decision, which, in the long run, was a good idea. He catches up with Luciana pretty early on, and they team up. Three days in though, things are looking bad. They've been eating snow, and so far it hasn't helped them. They've no food, and only a knife for a weapon. So far, 13 tributes are dead, but none of them are Careers. Chrissy and Jamir have been awake for almost all of it, and now Chrissy forces herself to stay awake, her eyes bloodshot with deep circles underneath, while Jamir dozes in his chair. She's starting to fall asleep herself when Jamir touches her shoulder softly and nods to the cot in the corner.

"You should sleep," he says gruffly.

Chrissy's so tired, she doesn't even argue. She just gets to her feet and goes to lie on the cot. She's asleep instantly. In her dream, Luciana and Yossarian are stabbed to death while the Careers hold her down and make her watch. Then the dead bodies of her tributes get up and start to clobber her to death with meat hammers. She starts screaming and that's when the feeling of something restricting around her registers. She starts to thrash around trying to free herself, and when her eyes really open, she notices she's still screaming, and that the restricting thing is Jamir's arms, holding her, trying to calm her down. Jamir's saying something to her, presumably to stop her screaming, but she doesn't take note of what it is. She does stop screaming, though. And then she just sits there, her chest heaving.

"It's alright," Jamir pants. "It was just a dream, Chrissy."

They sit there for just a moment, and then break apart quickly. The minutes while Chrissy gets her wits back and resets the cot are very awkward, mainly because neither Jamir nor Chrissy are very touchy-feely people, and are used to suffering nightmares alone. Then Chrissy says, "I'll take the next shift."

Jamir nods curtly and takes the cot while Chrissy situates herself in front of the screen, watching Yossarian and Luciana. She notices they're breaking apart. Yossarian is gripping a knife, and sneaking up on the boy from District 3. They start to fight. The boy has a short sword, but is unfamiliar with how to use it. He slashes open Yossarian's leg, and that's when Luciana comes up from behind and whacks him in the head with a sock packed full of snow, giving Yossarian time to kill the boy. They're pretty resourceful and they find a tent and some water inside the backpack they took from the boy.

"We've got enough points to send them some food," Jamir comments from the cot.

"Go to sleep!" Chrissy snaps. She checks the sponsor supply and sends the kids some bread, which is all they can afford. The next couple of days pass without event, but they're out of sponsor funds, and Yossarian and Luciana are looking rough. Several tributes have frozen to death, and only their combined warmth has saved them that fate. Thankfully they haven't run into any of the massive bears that prowl around the north end of the arena. But the arena is getting colder, and they're out of food. But it's when they decide to split up that things really go wrong. They're both weak with hunger and Yossarian decides to take the knife and go ahead to search for some of the large snow hares that roam the arena. Luciana stays back at the tent to guard the supplies. It's only a minute or two before she hears Yossarian scream.


	30. The Sting of Faliure

"Yossarian!" she cries, scrambling out of the tent and running towards the sound. With a sinking heart, Chrissy can see on another screen that the group of five Careers have Yossarian pinned between them and have opened up a gash on his chest. Not fatal, of course, but enough to be very painful and draw Luciana to them. Sure enough, she comes bursting through the snow and right into their trap. Two Careers grab her and twist her arms behind her back, forcing her to her knees in front of Yossarian.

"I'm sorry!" Luciana cries. "I'm sorry Yossarian! I shouldn't have let you go!"

"Shut up!" growls the boy from District 1. Onyx, Chrissy heard someone call him. He kicks Luciana in the back.

"Now, tell her it's gonna be alright," commands one of the girls who holds Yossarian's arms. Yossarian doesn't move. Onyx lays open Luciana's forehead and she shrieks. "Tell her!" he snarls.

"It's going to be alright!" Yossarian cries too loudly.

The Careers laugh. "So, who's first?" asks the boy from District 4.

"I say the girl!"

"No, the boy!"

"I know what to do!" says the girl from 2 suddenly, getting a devilish grin on her face. She pushes Yossarian down onto his knees in front of Luciana. She frees his arms and presses her spear point into his back, then commands Onyx to do the same to Luciana.

"Take her hands," she orders. Yossarian takes Luciana's small hands in his own. "Alright." Then she and Onyx simultaneously drove their spears through the torsos of Luciana and Yossarian. Chrissy lets out a blood-curdling scream as the Careers kill Yossarian and Luciana. She doesn't notice that she's woken Jamir. He just sits up with a tired, infinitely sad look on his face, already knowing their tributes are dead. Chrissy, though, sees her dream from so many weeks ago. Yossarian and Luciana lying in the snow, holding hands while the snow around them turns bright red with their blood. It creeps into the snow, fanning out around them in a bloody blossom. The cameras lock on the image, and it fills Chrissy's mind so that she knows it will haunt her for the rest of her days, this bloody flower and the death of her first two tributes at the center. The sight burns itself into her eyes and that's all she sees until she arrives back at District 9.

She walks around her empty house for an hour at least, completely unknowing as to what to do with herself. She eventually makes her way to her bed and lies down on it, thinking back to her last days in the Capitol. In retrospect, she remembers the things that she didn't even notice were happening when they were really going on. Like how when she ran out of the watching room, she was cornered by reporters, demanding to know how it felt to have her first two tributes killed at the same time. Jamir, thankfully, had come to her rescue, pushing away the reporters and pulling her through a maze of Capitol streets back to the area of her hotel. He had then tried to talk to her, but she had just walked away without a word. She had lain on her bed until dusk, when she had dragged herself from the coma-like state she'd been in, and meandered aimlessly through the streets until she came across a small park. For no real reason, she climbed into the small birch tree that was there, leaning against it's trunk, savoring the solidness of it. She envied that tree. The tree never had to worry about the future, or mourn the past or fear for anything. It simply…was. It existed only in the now. She had started to sing, then, a new song.

_I'm so tired of being here  
Suppressed by all my childish fears  
And if you have to leave  
I wish that you would just leave  
'Cause your presence still lingers here  
And it won't leave me alone_

These wounds won't seem to heal  
This pain is just too real  
There's just too much that time cannot erase

When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears  
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears  
And I held your hand through all of these years  
But you still have  
All of me

You used to captivate me  
By your resonating light  
Now I'm bound by the life you left behind  
Your face it haunts  
My once pleasant dreams  
Your voice it chased away  
All the sanity in me

These wounds won't seem to heal  
This pain is just too real  
There's just too much that time cannot erase

_When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears  
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears  
And I held your hand through all of these years  
But you still have  
All of me___

I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone  
But though you're still with me  
I've been alone all along

_When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears  
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears  
And I held your hand through all of these years  
But you still have  
All of me__  
_

My Immortal. The sun was rising by the time she roused herself from the tree, and she spent the rest of her Capitol visit in a fog.


	31. Here We Go Again

Now she knew she had to reconcile herself to Luciana and Yossarian's deaths. She couldn't keep reacting this way whenever a tribute died, she'd never make it! But the meeting with Yossarian and Lee's mother had been the worst. Mainly because she hadn't been there. After Yossarian's death, his mother had committed suicide, slicing her wrists with a kitchen knife. Chrissy had gotten that news from Yossarian's stony-faced father. She had hung her head, unable to express her shame at her failure. Now she rose from the bed and grabbed her bag, heading into town. She knew what she wanted. She made a beeline for the mercantile and bought a dozen boxes of cigarettes. The woman at the counter looked resigned. Chrissy went home and tried them out, promptly being violently sick into the sink. But she kept at it until she had mastered the cigarettes enough to not lose her lunch every time she took a puff.

And so the days following her first mentoring job passed. She struggled to find things to do to fill her days, but she was determined not to become one of the drooling morphlings she saw at the Capitol. So she saved the cigarettes for particularly bad nights, and overcoming the urge to smoke became a triumph for her. She liked feeling that she could control her need for the addictive stuff, even if it was only an illusion. She sang, of course, and she hunted. Even though she didn't need to, she did, because it gave her something to do, and she wanted to keep her body strong. She'd always been athletic, and the thought of wasting away disgusted her. She forced herself out of the house, dressed appropriately, every day, except the weekends, when she allowed herself to relax. She was terrified that she'd lose herself if she didn't keep up the semblance of a routine. But it was really her music and morning runs that kept her sane. Sometimes she wondered where she'd be if she couldn't sing or play guitar.

The year seemed to drag on while it was happening, but the night before the reaping, it seemed to Chrissy that it had flown by. The only remarkable event was Yeoman's passing. She wasn't surprised, really. He'd been going downhill for a while. But it had still been a shock for her to barge into his house one April morning and find him on the floor of his bathroom, his eyes staring sightlessly up at the ceiling, a slight trickle of blood coming from where he'd hit his head on the tiled floor. She grieved a bit over Yeoman, but truly, she believed he was happier dead. He still hadn't spoken, down to his last moments.

It was with a heavy heart, as always, that Chrissy dragged herself down the steps of her house, dressed in black, to meet Jamir to walk down to the town square together. They parted the crowd like water, but they could feel the crowd's mixed negative emotions directed at them like a laser. Trisha was as energetic as ever, pulling the names "Erika Cavendish!" and "Marcella Wainright!" The former was a burly, homely girl who might actually have a chance, while the latter was a snotty weakling. Chrissy sighed.

They board the train after good-byes and the tributes go to their rooms…really the whole thing is becoming a well-worn routine. Chrissy eats their dinner of chicken and wild rice that night without really tasting it. Nothing seems to make an impact on her. She's developed a sort of detachment from the whole thing. Because most importantly, she knows for her own sanity, she can't get attached to these tributes. Feeling free to help herself to some wine, she regards the new tributes over the rim of a wine glass.

"So, have either of you any skills?" she asks, sounding bored.

"I can wrestle," Erika offers up. "And I'm not too bad with a knife."

"Hand- to- hand," Chrissy comments. "Good. Marcella?"

Marcella shrugs. "I'm okay with a bow, I guess."

Jamir lets out a long breath. "Well, when we get to training, we'll see what we really have to work with."

Chrissy nods rhythmically, taking another sip of wine. She's developed quite a taste for the stuff. Much better than cigarettes or beer. Dinner is a quiet affair for Jamir and Chrissy, silent and stoic, while Trisha chats up Erika and Marcella. Marcella is a merchant's child, pampered and babied, at 14 the youngest of 4 siblings. Erika's father won the Games a decade or two ago, so she's used to hearing about them. She's 16 and strong as a bull. But she's so unattractive; Chrissy knows she'll be hard-pressed to get the girl any sponsors. Not to mention she still flat as a ten-year old boy, despite her age. Gradually people filter out. The tributes go to bed. Trisha leaves to attend to the schedule. Jamir drifts off to who-knows-where. And Chrissy stays, slowly sipping her wine, making one glass last an hour at least. She gazes out the window, covered with condensation from the spring's rain, troubled. Her mind keeps chugging along with its thoughts so when Jamir comes in, sporting blood-shot eyes and rumpled black hair, he stares at her in disbelief. "You're still here? It's three in the morning!"

"I was thinking," Chrissy says, drawing the sentence out, uncharacteristically subdued.

"About what?" Jamir asks, sitting next to her in shorts and a muscle shirt, not that he was ripped, by any sense of the word. But he wasn't a weakling either.

"A lot," Chrissy says. She raises the glass to her lips, when Jamir's dark hand moves over it, gently taking it away.

"I think that's quite enough wine for you," he says, but he sounds just the slightest bit worried about her.

The contemplativeness of her mood is marked by the fact that she didn't react to this. "How do you do it?" she asked.

"Mentor the tributes?"

"Yeah. I mean…how does it not drive you insane?"

Jamir sighs heavily, leaning back in his chair. "Everyone deals with it in their own way, I suppose. You have to find a way to detach yourself, or you end up nuts."

Chrissy looks over at Jamir and her eyes look a thousand years old. "Then that's what I'll do," she says, and she gets to her feet as if she were as old as God himself and walks with a heavy tread back to her room, to let the nightmares take her.


	32. Parades

If Yossarian and Luciana's costumes for the parade were bad, Erika and Marcella's are terrible. Erika's wearing some kind of bikini that's modeled after a hunter's outfit, emphasizing the complete lack of curves on her body. Marcella's the same sort of outfit on, in a male version, meaning his whole upper body is bare, and he's got a loincloth on. Jamir groans and Chrissy hangs her head in her hands. They're toast. Training passes without event, aside from that Erika blows the Gamemakers away with her wrestling skill and earns a 9. Marcella earns a 4. But still, Chrissy and Jamir are resigned to the death of their tributes. Even Erika can't hold a candle to the Careers from 2, who seem particularly vicious and good-looking this year. But that was before the interviews. When, from out of nowhere, Erika pulls out this kind, easy-going, but deadly girl who has to win to be able to provide for her mentally unstable father and little brother. And Marcella manages to be absolutely charming, and has the whole audience hooting for him by the time he exits.

Chrissy goes backstage, a shortcut around to the Training Center, a bubble of excitement growing inside her. Maybe they did have a chance! So she's totally unfocused when someone rams into her. She staggers backwards, holding her head.

"Hey, watch where you're going!" she yelps.

"Maybe you should watch where you're going," drawls an all-too-familiar voice. Haymitch!

"I'm not the one stumbling around, drunk," Chrissy retorts.

"Because you're too good for that!" Haymitch snarls, getting in her face.

Chrissy draws the dagger she keeps in her boot at all times. "Get away from me, you scumbag."

"You don't have a whole lot of room to be throwing around insults, Ice Queen," Haymitch says viciously.

"Shut the hell up, Haymitch, or I'll make you!" Chrissy threatens, stepping closer. Their faces are just inches apart now.

"How are you going to do that, girly?" Haymitch challenges, glaring at her.

Stormy gray eyes meet blazing green ones and they lock for a long moment, both of them scowling, tensed for a fight. Chrissy still has her dagger gripped in one hand. Then, before either of them knows what happened, Haymitch swoops in and kisses her, right on the mouth. Chrissy's shock lasts only a split second, before she relaxes, the hand grasping the dagger falling to her side, and she kisses Haymitch back, hard. They're not touching at all, but for their lips, locked as intensely as their eyes had been a moment ago. They pull apart, both their eyes unreadable, and then Effie's crowing Haymitch's name, though he seems content to ignore her. But Chrissy's gaze hardens first, and she sheathes her dagger.

"Better get back to work," she says, striding off as if nothing had happened.

Inside, she's a mess. Her stomach feels like it's doing backflips, her head is spinning and she feels dizzy. She forces herself to calm down, thinking how ridiculous it is that she's feeling this way over _Haymitch_, that arrogant…that selfish…Chrissy breaks off her train of thought, angry at herself for not being able to gather her thoughts. But once she gets around to analyzing the kiss, she gets chills up and down her back and warmth spreads through her to her fingertips. And it strikes her that she actually…enjoyed it. Just like that, she lets go all of the incredibly hostile feelings she's been harboring towards Haymitch. But she's still wary, because she still doesn't trust Haymitch.


	33. Haymitch's Thoughts

So, this one's really short, but it was neccecary. As for the song My Immortal, that belongs to Evanescence as wel.

* * *

~Haymitch's POV~

I kissed her! What was I thinking? What the hell could have possibly been going through my mind? As if I didn't know. I don't know what's wrong with me lately! I can't get her out of my mind! Ever since I heard her sing in that tree…and saw those damned music videos she made that Effie was showing off on her new TV-watch! She just…she's got so much energy and spirit and fight in her! Like she wouldn't give in to anyone! Oh, who am I kidding? I never hated her. I just liked to think I did, but that pretense dropped when I heard her more thoughtful side.

The look in her eyes, while she sat on that stool, fixed up by the Capitol, singing their songs…that smile may have fooled others, but not me. I could see the scream in those deep green eyes, crying out for someone to notice that she was dying inside. That night I heard her first…I knew she was the one. I'll never forget Julia, but Chrissy's something else.

I knew it. I knew when I saw her move so gracefully into that tree, with such speed and…litheness. Is that a word? That she was the one for me, and that I'd never meet another girl I wanted to be with forever. I wanted to propose to her that night, but I knew she still hated me, and somewhere in the corners of my mind, I still hated her too. So I knew I'd have to find a way to turn things around first.

I'm on the way, and someday I'll be able to tell her how I feel because I KNOW someday we'll be married. I won't lose Chrissy the way I lost Julia.


	34. Meeting Place

Sorry this one is so short, I haven't finished the next scene and my posts are starting to actually catch up to what I have written! Anyway, enjoy and I'll update again soon.

* * *

Chrissy walks to dinner that night on a cloud. She actually caught herself giggling as she washed her hair, which was scary. She praises Erika and Marcella heavily while all the while imagining the pressure of Haymitch's lips on hers, the feel of his rough, olive skin against her own, those intense gray eyes, burning into hers…Snap out of it! She commands herself. This is ridiculous. She isn't going to go gaga over one kiss! Still, it was her first kiss…she pinches her leg, telling herself to knock it off. But one of Jamir's comments throws her violently back into reality.

"Yeah, great job," he says harshly, his eyes dark. Chrissy can tell he's drunk. "Maybe since you had such great interviews, the Capitol will decide they don't really want to kill you!" His voice is acerbic and wounding.

Erika and Marcella fall silent, reminded of the hopelessness of their situation. Trisha looked around awkwardly, trying to find a way to salvage the situation. "Ah…you guys should get to sleep. You'll need your rest for tomorrow."

"Yeah," Erika says, getting roughly to her feet. She and Marcella depart to their rooms.

"Well, I'd better get going too," Chrissy says, heading for the door.

"Chrissy, where are you going?" Trisha asks coldly. Nothing had been smooth between them since Chrissy's visit with President Snow.

"To my fourth-rate hotel," Chrissy replies. Really, she just wants to get out of the Training Center.

"Your room is fixed," Trisha says.

"Well then I'm going for a walk!" Chrissy snaps.

"Just stay in the goddam building!" Jamir growls.

"Go to bed," Chrissy says to Jamir. "You're drunk as a bastard."

Jamir gets to his feet, but it's pretty clear he won't be getting far. Chrissy swears under her breath and goes to drag Jamir to his room. He leans heavily on her, and she has to almost carry him down the hall. She kicks the door open and slings Jamir down on his bed. As she turns to go, he catches her hand, and looks at her with this pathetic expression.

"Stay with me," he murmurs.

"Aw, God…"Chrissy groans. But she does owe Jamir a bit, so she pushes him over and sits down on the bed. He curls up unnecessarily close to her and closes his eyes. It's quiet for a long time, and Chrissy is contemplating slipping off when she recognizes with a silent curse that Jamir hasn't fallen asleep at all.

"Sing for me?" he asks.

"No. Go to sleep."

"Okay."

Several more agonizing minutes pass in total boredom before Jamir starts snoring, and Chrissy slides off the bed, fleeing to the roof. She walks to the edge, over near where she'd jumped off in front of Chaff that night before the Games. How long ago that seemed! As if it had happened to someone else. Suddenly, she felt the weight of this life upon her. It would never end, the pain, the suffering, the nightmares. Even if she didn't have to be a mentor forever, she'd never be the same, never heal. As she contemplates the wretchedness of her existence with a heavy heart, a casual voice behind her says, "Hey, sweetheart."

She spins around, her stomach turning over. What to say? "Haymitch," she says, regarding him with wary green eyes. Haymitch stands there, watching her as well, neither of them daring to make a move towards the other. She leans back against the wall, waiting for Haymitch to say something more.

"Come on, walk with me," Haymitch asks, jerking his head towards the door. Chrissy's still wary, but she follows, saying, "Alright."

* * *

I'd like to give a shout-out to all my followers! You guys rock and your reviews are what inspire me to keep writing, even when I don't feel like it!


	35. Friends? Maybe Not

He leads them down through the Training Center and then begins to weave through the Capitol streets. "Where are we going?" Chrissy asks.

"Just some place I found last year," Haymitch replies. They walk in silence until they turn the corner to a large water fountain, covered in glittering lights. Chrissy's eyes widen for just a moment, taking in the beauty of it, but she quickly regains her cool demeanor.

"Why did you bring me here?" she asks.

"Why?" Haymitch repeats. "I thought girls liked pretty stuff."

"I mean, why talk to me? Why take me out here? What do you _want_?" she presses.

"Want? I don't want anything," Haymitch says, giving her a queer look.

"I find that hard to believe."

"Why?"

"Because you're you!" Chrissy exclaims. "You never do anything for anyone unless it means getting something you want. So what do you want from me?" She can hardly believe how stupid she'd been acting earlier.

Haymitch narrowed his eyes. "It never occurred to you that I just wanted to walk with you?"

"No. Who wants to spend time with me? The Ice Queen?" Her last words spew venom.

Haymitch rolled his eyes. "You're so naïve."

"What? Naive?" Chrissy shrieks the first word, and then decides it's prudent to lower her voice. "You are so…selfish!" she snaps and then turns to go. Haymitch stands by the water fountain a moment, ready to kick himself for letting things degenerate so quickly. "Wait!" He grabs her arm. "Chrissy, wait."

This in itself, the use of her name, is enough to make her stop, because Haymitch has never, ever used her name. She narrows her eyes at him. "What?" she asks insolently.

"Don't go yet," he says. "I didn't want to fight. I didn't bring you here to argue."

"Then what do you want?"

"I just want to…you know, talk," he says, and in the lack of arrogance on his face, she knows he's speaking only the truth.

"Fine," she says, striding over to a bench in front of the fountain and sitting down, crossing her legs. She looks at Haymitch, who's still standing where she left him. "Well, sit down. I won't bite, unless you really annoy me."

The corner of Haymitch's lips quirk up and he sits beside her.

"So what did you want to talk about?"

Haymitch leaned back. "Well…what's it like in District 9?"

Chrissy just stares at him for a minute, feeling the weirdness of this whole encounter. "Well, there are a lot of trees. And during the fall the leaves on some of them change color, and then fall off. The town itself is pretty sad. It really makes you depressed just being there. Even where I live, in the Victor's Village."

"Do you live with your family?"

Chrissy flicks her eyes down to the ground. "They're dead."

"Join the club," Haymitch says, giving her a look that could perhaps be interpreted as sympathy.

"You too?" she asks, looking over at Haymitch. Her eyes lock with his. Those stormy gray eyes, so intense, so…dangerous. Those eyes that are only seen on District 12 kids. She shakes her head to clear it, but Haymitch has taken advantage of her momentary lapse in guardedness and moved closer. "Yep."

Chrissy decides that they need to find something less traumatizing to talk about. And that rules out their current occupation as well. She casts her thoughts around for something to discuss. "Why does Effie wear that wig?" she asks at last, desperate. "Doesn't she know how stupid it looks?"

Haymitch snorts. "Try telling her that! She won't listen to anyone. Personally, I can't stand her."

"I can't imagine you two getting along well," Chrissy says.

"How's Trisha?" Haymitch asks.

"A no good, dirty rotten, backstabbing, lying, petty, self-absorbed scoundrel. I hate her."

"Sounds about typical," Haymitch sighs. "Any particular reason?"

Chrissy contemplates telling Haymitch about her meeting with President Snow, but decides against it. She has a fierce reluctance to mention the whole thing to anyone. "She's from the Capitol and helped prep me for my death. What other reasons do I need?" Her words came out angrier than she intended.

"Alright, alright, chill man," Haymitch says. "I understand." He looks at her, and she can see in his eyes, that he does understand, and an overwhelming need for someone who knows what she's been through sweeps through her. "I know," she says. They pause for a moment, and then Chrissy says, "We should probably go back. We'll need sleep for tomorrow." She can't keep the bitterness from her voice.

"Yeah," Haymitch mutters, the same tone afflicting his words. He gets off the bench, looking as if it takes all his energy to keep his feet moving towards the Training Center. Chrissy glimpses in his expressive eyes, her own deep reluctance and pain at returning to their tributes that will inevitably die. But they keep walking anyway, a sort of camaraderie in the silence between them. How different it was from their last meeting!

As they walk back, Chrissy begins to notice the way the crowd parts for them, watching them as they pass. Perhaps it's because their victors, but the more she thinks on it, the more she thinks the Capitol crowd is scared of them. She imagines this scene. She and Haymitch are young, extremely fit and muscular, fairly attractive, and pretty darn angry with the Capitol. No wonder no one wants to be near them! She snickers at the thought. Haymitch looks at her with a raised eyebrow.

"What's so funny?"

"I was just thinking how we must appear to the Capitol crowd." She explains her thoughts.

Haymitch snorts and shakes his head. "Yeah, I bet they are scared. I hope they are."

They laugh, but it's more because they both need a laugh so much than real amusement. When they reach floor 9 for Chrissy to go to her room, the first thing she glimpses is Trisha waiting for her, arms crossed, angry.

"Oh shit! Get back in, get back in!" she cries, pushing Haymitch back into the elevator. They trip over each other in their haste to get away.

"What?" he asks as she collapses against the far wall, laughing at Trisha's attempt to grab her before they got back on.

"Trisha was pissed, man," she says, "Did you see her face?"

Haymitch nods, trying to stifle an amused smile himself. Escaping a furious escort was the closest thing they had to fun these days. "Better come to 12. She'll never come up there," he says.

"Why not? I'll walk you back," Chrissy agrees.

They walk over to Haymitch's room, the last one in the row.

"So, I guess I'll see you around," Chrissy says. With the arrival at Haymitch's Capitol cleaned room, all her melancholy has returned.

"Wait!" Haymitch says suddenly, as she turns to leave. "Will you…stay with me tonight?"

Chrissy rounds on him, her eyes like fire, unable to believe what she just heard. _I knew it!_ "Excuse me?" she asks in a stunned rage.


	36. Sharing Fear

So, in the song below (Which belongs to Evanescence as well) (You guys are probably getting tired of the songs, but they fit so well!) Haymitch sings the parts that are in parenthases.

* * *

Haymitch's gray eyes widen. "I didn't mean-! Chrissy, I-"

"Shut up!" she interrupts. "Now I see what's going on. You stupid, selfish bastard, you really thought I'd be that _slutty?_ What the hell is wrong with you? God, Haymitch! How do you sleep at night!"

"I don't! That's why, I mean, I wanted you there to sing! You know, for the, uh…the nightmares…" Haymitch won't meet her eyes now, too ashamed of admitting weakness.

"Is that all?" Chrissy demands, still irate.

"Really, that's all!" Haymitch snaps.

"Oh." Feeling a bit ridiculous for having so badly overreached, Chrissy says, "Um…okay then." Because, honestly, she hates the nightmares too. Maybe company will improve them. She walks in as Haymitch holds the door open for her. She glances around the room. It looks almost exactly like hers. Recently cleaned, too. She sits down on the end of the bed, feeling weird.

"Well go on!" Haymitch says impatiently. She senses he's beginning to regret asking.

Chrissy focuses on her music, and begins to sing Imaginary. The song she never sang for Trisha and the Capitol. Haymitch whistled softly as she finished. "Damn. You're good. Did you write that?"

"Yes."

"Damn…"

"I can teach you," she offers, silently begging for a way to escape this place, for just a little while.

"I think not," Haymitch says.

"Oh, come on," she insists, a devilish grin quirking up the corners of her mouth.

"No."

"I think you're scared," she taunts. "Scared to sing in front of me."

"I am not scared! I just don't feel like it," Haymitch says, falling back on the bed.

"Sure…" Chrissy says smugly.

Haymitch scowls at her. "You are so full of yourself, Chrissy van Pelt."

"Sound familiar?" she prompts. "Haymitch Abernathy, winner of the Quarter Quell?"

"Grr…Fine! Teach me to sing!"

"Good."

Chrissy launches into a complicated lesson that has Haymitch swearing with frustration halfway through and Chrissy attempting to get him to swear in the right key. After an hour and 45 minutes, Chrissy says, "Close enough! Sing this new piece with me. I need a partner." Haymitch grudgingly agrees as she shoves the paper into his hands.

_How can you see into my eyes like open doors  
leading you down into my core  
where I've become so numb without a soul my spirit sleeping somewhere cold  
until you find it there and lead it back home  
_

_Wake me up inside  
(I can't wake up)  
Wake me up inside  
(Save me)  
call my name and save me from the dark  
(Wake me up)  
bid my blood to run  
(I can't wake up)  
before I come undone  
(Save me)  
save me from the nothing I've become_

now that I know what I'm without  
you can't just leave me  
breathe into me and make me real  
bring me to life

(Wake me up)  
Wake me up inside  
(I can't wake up)  
Wake me up inside  
(Save me)  
call my name and save me from the dark  
(Wake me up)  
bid my blood to run  
(I can't wake up)  
before I come undone  
(Save me)  
save me from the nothing I've become

Bring me to life  
(I've been living a lie, there's nothing inside)  
Bring me to life

frozen inside without your touch without your love darling only you are the life among the dead

all this time I can't believe I couldn't see  
kept in the dark but you were there in front of me  
I've been sleeping a thousand years it seems  
got to open my eyes to everything  
without a thought without a voice without a soul  
don't let me die here  
there must be something more  
bring me to life

(Wake me up)  
Wake me up inside  
(I can't wake up)  
Wake me up inside  
(Save me)  
call my name and save me from the dark  
(Wake me up)  
bid my blood to run  
(I can't wake up)  
before I come undone  
(Save me)  
save me from the nothing I've become

(Bring me to life)  
I've been living a lie, there's nothing inside  
(Bring me to life)

"That's intense," Haymitch says. "Really."

"Thanks. I've been working on it for a while."

They stay up talking and singing deep into the night. Haymitch teaches her _The Hanging Tree _which she takes to immediately. Around 3 in the morning, they're both losing it. Haymitch is slumped against the headboard and Chrissy's given up all pretenses of pretending to be awake and is lying down on the other side of the bed. "Maybe we should get to bed," Haymitch yawns.

"Yeah…" Chrissy mumbles.

Haymitch lugs himself off the bed and disappears, coming back a moment later in just shorts. He slides into the bed, falling asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow. Chrissy gets up and goes to the dresser, putting on some black boxers, which are what she prefers to sleep in, and a skinny tank-top. She, too, gets into bed, too tired at this point to care about the implications.

As gray light leaks through the curtains, Chrissy jolts up, waking from a dream in which she's being whipped with a nine tailed whip with nails embedded in it. She's shaking all over and looks over at Haymitch, who's thrashing around violently with tears dripping down his cheeks.

"Haymitch!" she cries tremulously. "Wake up!" She shakes him hard. He gasps and his eyes fly open, wide with panic. As soon as he sees her there, that slight guardedness comes back into his eyes and he leans against the headboard, panting. Then, with no warning, he gets up roughly and staggers off into the bathroom, shutting the door. Curiosity has overcome Chrissy and she creeps closer, listening.

"Oh, God…I should have been able to save you…I'm so sorry…Why was I so stupid? Mother…Julia…Lucifer…" Haymitch's agonized voice trails off and Chrissy is acutely aware of how cold she feels. All the blood has drained away from her face, leaving her heartbeat pounding in her mind. She slinks back to bed, feeling guilty about eavesdropping. She lies there for so long, waiting for Haymitch to return that she drifts off until she feels his weight shifting the mattress. She hesitates, feeling that she ought to say something, but she isn't sure what there is to say.


	37. Luck

"I'm sorry about your family," she says finally, without turning to look at Haymitch.

"Huh?"

"Your family. You cried out their names in your sleep." Chrissy had always had an uncanny talent for lying. She feels it would be useful here.

"How do you know it was my family?" Haymitch asks, sounding irritated that she'd heard anything.

"I assumed. Was I wrong?"

There is a long pause and then a muffled "No."

_Great_ Chrissy thought. "Are you crying?" she demands. Her abruptness comes from her lack of experience in dealing with other people.

"No!" comes the affronted response. But she notices that Haymitch neither looks at her nor stops shaking.

_Aw, dammit! What do I do now? _So, in a moment of panic, she does the only thing she can think of. She sings. It was a relatively slow song, especially for her. She sits up, cross-legged and fixes her eyes on the wall across from her and lets the music flow. She puts all her energy into driving away the fear of the nightmares with her voice. When she finishes, Haymitch is looking at her with an expression that can only be called wonder. He quickly shakes it off as she slides back under the sheets. "Better?" she asks gruffly.

Haymitch doesn't respond, but Chrissy can feel him shift closer to her. She pointedly rolls over, so her back is facing him and goes back to sleep.

When she wakes up later that day, Haymitch is shamelessly snuggled up against her, his curly dark head resting on her shoulder. "Get off me!"

Haymitch wakens with alarm, his hair closely resembling her father's after he was electrocuted once. "Wha-? Huh? What's happening?"

"Nothing, you lump. Except you _sleeping on me_!" Chrissy caught Haymitch in the side of the head with a pillow.

"Hey! I liked you better when you were sleeping!" Haymitch tossed a pillow at her. Chrissy took that as war, and began to mercilessly beat Haymitch with her pillow. "Hey-!" Haymitch got tangled up in the sheets, trying to get away and fell off the edge of the bed.

"I win," Chrissy announced, throwing the pillow at Haymitch and leaving to get dressed. She returned in her usual dark green cargo pants and brown t-shirt. "Well, I need to get going. Erika and Marcella go into the arena today." Her voice and face grows solomn.

"Right," Haymitch mutters. "I'll see you around then."

The both give a curt nod of goodbye and Chrissy walks down the hallway and takes the elevator to the ninth floor. Trisha grabs her ear as soon as she steps off. "You, young lady, have a lot to learn about being a mentor!"

"Ouch! What the hell!" Chrissy yanks herself out of Trisha's grip.

"Where were you last night? I told you to stay in the building!"

"I went for a walk!"

"Where were you the REST of the night? Still walking?" Trisha demands.

"None of your business!" Chrissy snaps, furious that Trisha was prying into her private life like this.

"It is my business!" Trisha says. "And if you disappear again, I'll find out to where! Now get going!"

"I'd like to see that happen," Chrissy mutters under her breath, following Trisha to the landing pad. Erika and Marcella are there. Erika looks scared but determined. Marcella looks terrified. Chrissy shakes their hand.

"Good luck, guys. Just find a source of water. That's your first objective. Once you have a source of water, you have a much better chance."

"Right," Erika says. She and Marcella get onto the hovercraft and disappear. Jamir and Chrissy board another hovercraft and fall into routine almost indistinguishable from the last one, where they failed to save Yossarian and Luciana. Erika was killed towards the end of the bloodbath when she stepped on a landmine. Marcella, stunningly enough, teamed up with the girl and boy from 10. It seemed like Chrissy was in one nightmare, knowing her tributes wouldn't make it out and just waiting for them to die. One night, she just can't take it anymore. When Jamir takes watch, she says, "I'm going for a walk!" and bolts out the door. She walks through the street, with no idea where she's going, only that she has to get away from the horror of it all.

"Hey Chrissy."

She turns to see Haymitch sitting on a bench, staring gravely out at the street. "Shouldn't you be monitoring your tributes?"

"Jamir's on watch," Chrissy says, sitting down. "Shouldn't…never mind."

"They never had a chance," Haymitch said bitterly. "They were too weak and malnourished from the beginning."

Chrissy pauses for a long moment before she replies, "That may be, but Erika was strong and she died too. The Games are just as much about luck as anything else."

They are silent again for a long time, and then Haymitch says, "Want to go get something to eat?" Chrissy looks over at him, and sees her own desperation for a distraction from this whole mess reflected there. "Sure."


	38. Kisses in the Rain

So, a few sentances recap here. Things are heating up again, as my master plan comes into action. *cues evil laugh* You, my loyal followers, will just have to wait and see!

* * *

They are silent again for a long time, and then Haymitch says, "Want to go get something to eat?" Chrissy looks over at him, and sees her own desperation for a distraction from this whole mess reflected there. "Sure. But do you think we should get an umbrella or something? It looks like it's going to rain."

"Nah," Haymitch says, getting up. "Let's go."

About ten minutes later, they're splashing through puddles deep enough to drown a toddler as rain hammers down on them. "I told you we-"

"Shut up!" Haymitch snaps. "Don't even say it!"

They pause for a moment under a street light. "Is it just me, or are we in a residential area?" Chrissy asks.

"I think so…"

"Brilliant, Haymitch," Chrissy says sarcastically. "Got any more great ideas?"

"Let's just get out of here," Haymitch says. They keep walking until they see a small street lined with little shops and restaurants.

"There!" Chrissy exclaims, pointing. They run to the nearest shop, sheltering under the extended roof. Chrissy ran a hand through her hair, shaking out a good deal of water. "Next time you offer to take me somewhere, remind me to say no."

"Next time I offer to take you somewhere, remind me not to," Haymitch counters. "Do you know where we are?"

"No clue. But it's getting late…the shops are closing down." Chrissy indicates the darkened lights of the shop behind them.

"Well, we might as well walk around. We're already soaked," Haymitch says, looking out at the abating rain.

"Touché." It takes them the better part of an hour and a half to find their way back to the place they'd come from. Haymitch walks Chrissy to her Monitoring Room. She stands outside for a moment, not wanting to walk back inside, back into the world of death and torment. Her eyes burn into Haymitch's and she realizes she could be happy to just stand here and stare into his eyes until she collapsed of exhaustion. With that in mind, she leans forward and kisses him fiercely on the lips, so hard it hurts and then goes into the Monitoring Room and slams the door. She's sure her cheeks are flushed, so she keeps her head down while Jamir scolds her. "Where have you been? You said you were going for a walk, not a camping trip! It's been hours!"

"I'm sorry," Chrissy mutters.

Jamir walks over and takes her chin in his hand, pulling her face up to look at him. His eyes skim the bruise forming on her lower lip. He lets her go. "Of all the people, Chrissy…" He shook his head. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised."

"What are you yammering on about?" Chrissy demands.

"You and Haymitch, Chrissy. It's kind of obvious. Starting with how worked up you get every time someone even mentions his name, and ending today with that bruise on your lip. Unless you plan on telling me you fell and hit it on something?"

Chrissy opens her mouth, ready to spew out some really convincing lie, but the look Jamir's giving her tells her no matter how convincing she is, he won't believe her. So she just lowers her head and stares at her feet.

Jamir chuckles. "You're lucky, Chrissy. To find any kind of happiness after the Games. But you're on watch now," his voice takes on its usual seriousness once more. Chrissy nods, not sure what to say, and sits down in front of the screens.

Nothing happens for a day or two, and then the boy and girl from 10 turn on Marcella and kill him. She can't help the profanity the jumps from her mouth. Jamir stands behind her, shaking his head. "Marcella was never a real contender," he says.

"That was no reason to kill him!" Chrissy says furiously. "I hate this place! I hate it all! I hate the Capitol, and the Games and everything about Panem!" She whirled around and stormed out of the Monitoring Room and runs out into the rain that still pounds down around them. She makes a beeline for the park and sits down on a sodden bench beneath a cultivated willow tree and buries her face in her hands, sobbing and swearing alternatively.

The sound of two pairs of feet squishing through the mud reaches her ears. She looks up only when there's the sound of swearing and she almost laughs through her tears. It's Jamir and Haymitch, and running across the grass, Jamir has slipped and landed on his back. But after the amusement passes, another wave of grief threatens to crush her. She goes over and helps Jamir to his feet. He shakes himself off and looks her in the eyes. "Chrissy…are you going to be alright?"

Chrissy nods, wiping her eyes. "I'll be fine."

"Well, I'm leaving you Haymitch, to make sure you don't kill yourself. Now I need a shower." Jamir walks off, presumably to the Training Center.

Haymitch fixes his eyes on his feet and flicks them up briefly to Chrissy. Oh, how that glance made her heart skip! "I guess this means he approves," Haymitch mutters. He looks up at Chrissy. "But I can't tell with you! Do you hate me or what? One minute you're yelling at me, the next we're kissing. We really need to decide where we are."

Chrissy gave a teary laugh. "But Haymitch, it's a girl's place to be confusing." She stepped closer, so they could look straight into each other's eyes. "And I do hate you, sometimes. But not so much anymore."

The energy flowing between the two of them was strong enough that anyone could have felt it. Their intense gazes locked together, sparks flying. "Well, Chrissy van Pelt, winner of the Fifty-Fifth Hunger Games, in that case I should very much like to be with you for every minute we can steal from the Capitol." He put his arms around her waist.

"I think, Haymitch Abernathy, winner of the Quarter Quell, that that is the best idea I've head in ages," Chrissy says, smiling through her tears. And they kiss, a long, drawn out kiss that tastes of pain and sorrow and loss and love. So much emotion, passing through such a small gesture. They're wrapped up in each other's arms and the rain is dumping all around them, and the blood flows in the arena and no matter how much they love each other they know they can't fix what was broken, but that's not stopping them from trying it anyway.


	39. Rollercoaster Ride

Since their tributes are dead, Jamir, Chrissy and Haymitch go back to the Capitol, where the reporters badger them for answers. They escape by virtually barricading themselves in the Training Center. Not that any of them has a profound desire to venture outside; they're all feeling rather grim. Which, for Chrissy, leads to a bizarre rollercoaster of the deepest lows and the most exhilarating highs: her days are spent in the company of Haymitch, in a haze of bliss and her nights are quickly becoming full blown torture sessions, so much so she almost fears to go to sleep. She and Haymitch had kept to their respective rooms since that first night. Haymitch didn't ask for her to stay again, and she didn't press the subject.

They never do anything fancy, just spend days on the roof, or in Haymitch's room, or occasionally slip out to the park. But mostly they stay in the upper levels of the Training Center. Sometimes Haymitch will humor Chrissy and do some swordplay with her, although he thinks her attempt to stay in shape is pointless. Chrissy's opinion is that he doesn't like getting his butt kicked by a girl.

The only thing that really bothers everyone else was the fact that Chrissy and Haymitch were _constantly _arguing. Everything has to be a competition with them and neither of them will take losing for an answer. As Jamir put it one day in exasperation "You're both so damn bull-headed, it'd drive a man to drink!" They accept this, and always make up eventually.

Neither of them are very friendly either, so one has to look closely to see their little gestures of affection. It's there, in a rough, arrogant manner. Many days are spend lying in the garden up on the roof, talking and singing and sometimes they both lie on their bellies and share a book. Chrissy gives up pretty quickly trying to teach Haymitch to sing, but she maintains that he could do it if he tried harder.

"You have such a nice tenor," she sighs, leaning back on her hands. The wind ruffles her blonde curls and chills her cheeks, but she ignores it.

"I'm sure the world is being deprived," Haymitch says sarcastically. "But I can handle that." He moves to sit behind her and wrap his arms around her. She leans back on his chest, taking comfort in the steady beat of his heart. They sit like that, silent for a while, watching the sun fall lower and lower in the sky. Then Chrissy asks, "How many girls did you kiss before me?"

Haymitch, startled, takes a moment to respond. "Excuse me? How many- I haven't exactly been keeping a list."

"But you know."

Haymitch ran a hand through his hair. "Ah…one or two," he muttered.

"One or two? That's it?" Chrissy cranes her neck to look at Haymitch.

"What do you mean that's it?" Haymitch snaps defensively. "That's all I wanted!"

"I just…it's surprising." Chrissy settles back against his chest.

Haymitch contemplates this for a long moment, and then says "Why?"

"Oh, you know," Chrissy says evasively.

"No, I don't. What is it?" Haymitch presses.

"It's just you're so…you know."

"So _what?_"

"So…" she turns to look at him again. At length she kisses him. "So damn good looking," she says.

Haymitch gives her a crooked, arrogant grin. "I can agree with that." He kisses her back, drawing it out. "So, on your radar, is damn good looking better than just good looking?"

"Much," Chrissy grins, brushing her lips over his throat.

"So, how many guys have you kissed?" Haymitch asks, extricating himself from Chrissy's kiss.

"Oh…that's not important," Chrissy says, looking back out to the sun, which was setting at this point.

"I'm just curious."

"Well…" Chrissy bites her lip and looks at the floor. "If you laugh at me, Haymitch Abernathy, I swear I'll bust your arm."

"This must be pretty good," Haymitch says, leaning closer. "How many? 15? 20?"

"I'd never kissed a boy before you."

"What? You're such a liar, Chrissy van Pelt," Haymitch scoffs.

"I'm serious!" she exclaims, stung, feeling her cheeks heat up. She tries to get up, but Haymitch pulls her back down. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry. I just find it hard to believe no guy has ever wanted you before."

"Oh, they might have, it's just I was having none of them," Chrissy smirks.

"I feel so blessed." Haymitch hugs her close and kisses her cheek from behind. Chrissy rolls her eyes, but accepts the kiss, ignoring the teasing note in his voice.


	40. The Wedding

"Oh, _puh-leese! _I totally kicked your ass!"

"You did not! I was distracted!"

"Excuses, excuses!"

"A bird flew in my face!"

"Stop being such a baby and take it like a man."

"Why don't we go again? I'll show you!"

"I don't feel like it," Chrissy says, sheathing her sword.

"Coward! You just don't want to have a failure to mar your victory!" Haymitch calls after her.

"I just don't feel like it!"

"Liar!"

"Shut up!" roared one of the other Victors, who was sitting at the edge of the Training Center, watching them.

Chrissy and Haymitch glance at the guy like he was going way overboard and then exited up to the ninth floor. This was the more typical scene for them.

The day after the Games ended (A boy from 2 had won), Chrissy picks at her breakfast, knowing what was coming. Trisha has been remarkably lenient with her disappearing (It helped that Jamir has assisted her and Haymitch in keeping their relationship undercover) but next year…who knew?

She goes up to her room to pack, and keeps hoping for Haymitch to come and say goodbye, but he doesn't. She drags her feet to the train, waiting, waiting, but nothing. She sits by a window in the last car with a heavy sigh. Back to her life in District 9. If one could call it life. There's a mind-numbing dullness and repetition to everyday that pricks at her. Back at the train station in 9, Erika and Marcella's families are waiting with accusing stares, which Jamir and Chrissy bear all the way back to their front doors. Chrissy casts a glance over at him as she goes inside and her dread at their entire future is reflected there.

Nothing much of merit happens during the next year, other than the Victory Tour, where Chrissy can barely stop herself from launching across the table and throttling that Victory, Brutus, with her bare hands and Kayanna getting married to some guy from town. A year ago, Chrissy would have condemned such behavior, saying that it was heartless of her to risk bringing children into the world after what they'd been through, but now…after what she'd had with Haymitch…she wasn't sure it was that simple anymore. So she went to the wedding, (of course Kayanna had invited her) although things were still tense between Chrissy and her former mentor.

She stands in front of her mirror the day before the wedding, dressed in white, which really doesn't fit her, brushing out her curly hair one last time. "Chrissy!" Jamir calls from below. "Time to go!"

"I'm coming!" She hurries downstairs as fast as her heels can manage and meets Jamir at the door and they walk to Kayanna's together. Her dress is long and strapless, brushing the tops of her feet, with skinny purple flowers on it and a tie around her waist. She has a silver necklace on, which matches her earrings. Jamir of course is dressed in a black tux.

The whole ceremony is nice and happy and reminds people that even when the Capitol's hold seems tightest, there's still weddings. But mostly for Chrissy, it highlights the spaces in the crowd where her family should be. She feels their loss so suddenly and acutely she gasps and drops her glass of wine. The villagers give her queer looks, but the other Victors look sympathetic. The ones who are coherent, anyway. She sits in the back row while people chat and dance and tries to pull herself back together, to push those dark emotions away until she can collapse at home, alone. So when Kayanna puts a hand on her shoulder, she jumps.

"Would you sing for us?" Kayanna asks, her eyes seeking forgiveness.

Chrissy is taken aback by the request, but doesn't let it show. Instead, she coolly regards Kayanna for a moment. "I suppose you'll want something happy?"

"Whatever you want," Kayanna says carefully.

"Sure." Chrissy gets to her feet and goes to stand where Kayanna and her new husband Riccio took their vows. She knows she can't do her usual repertoire, so she goes for a sad love song, but one that involves no death or madness. Merely a woman wishing for the wind to take her to her love, who she cannot find. Slowly, one by one, the crowd falls silent and turns to listen to Chrissy, who keeps her eyes on her feet, shutting out the rest of the world. She runs through a few more songs before she leaves as unobtrusively as she came.

Kayanna comes up to her with a quiet smile. "Thank you," she says. "I'm sorry, you know…I should have warned you."

Chrissy sighs. She can't go around hating everyone, it takes too much effort. "Whatever," she says dismissively. "It doesn't matter now anyway. They've got no one left to use against me." With that, she walks back to the small table of refreshments and takes a glass of champagne to toast the happy couple. In her head, she can't help but wonder how long they can be happy before the Capitol takes that away.


	41. Seperation Takes it's Toll

Fall comes and leaves swirl around the crumbling ground and it seems to Chrissy that District 9, the Victor's Village is a place completely isolated from the rest of the world. Now a chilled breeze ruffles her curls as she does her early morning jog around the town. The whole place seems to be holding its breath, waiting for something and she doesn't know what, only that time appears to have slowed so that she will always be here, in this town descending into winter's grasp. She goes along with it, accepting without much question the sure to be short-lived peace. She writes more songs, making a more substantial effort to make them happy.

Winter blows into town and snow lines the rickety roads into the village. Chrissy gives herself something to do by clearing the paths from the Victor's houses. Jamir sees her and comes down in black boots and a similar puffy coat from the Capital to help. They work in silence and leave in silence. There's a sort of understanding with Victors that they don't need to speak to be friends. During the frigid months that follow, Chrissy sits in front of her fireplace, writing, drawing and thinking. She practices cooking, because she's fallen into the habit of treating the kids in town.

She just can't help looking at their skinny selves gazing through the merchant's windows with great, wide eyes, knowing those treasures can never be theirs and want to give them a little something. Usually food. But because she's still rather intimidating, only the bravest kids will dare linger around her, hoping for a tidbit or something. So after they've gone off, or she's told them there's nothing more, she seeks out the shier ones, taking shelter in a nearby alley to watch and gives them the remains.

The Victory Tour chugs through 9, reminding them all of what's to come, and shattering the serenity of winter. Chrissy glares at the Victor, a harsh, brutal boy appropriately named Brutus. She loathes him with a fierceness that can barely be concealed. Why should he get to live? Why does he get to sit and stuff himself like a pig and gloat over his victory while Yossarian, Erika, Luciana and Marcella had to die? A bleaker though pushes its way into her mind. Why should she get to live, while the girl from 10 and Lee had to die?

_It's because no Victor deserves to win!_ She thinks in horror. _We're all the ones who are too mean, or spiteful or vicious to die! We're all of us terrible people! _She has no appetite after this.

And after the Tour, the Reaping. Beth Moriseau and Terrence Ostborn. Two more names on the list of kids Chrissy will have failed to save. She hears nothing that goes on around her in the Training Center. It seems as if the events are taking place on TV, someone else is living her life, she's just a bystander, powerless to stop the train that steams ahead, moving towards only more destruction. She doesn't eat, or respond when Trisha asks her what's wrong. Vaguely she makes out Jamir telling Trisha to leave her alone as she trudges out of the room and up to the roof. She looks down to the ground. If she could jump now, would she? Would she take her life, to escape this? If she did, would anyone miss her? Why would they? What happened when you died? Was there some other kind of life or were you just…gone? Pain lances through her heart at the thought of her siblings snuffed out like candles.

A hand snakes around her waist, and only then she realizes that she's gripping the railing and leaning forward over the edge of the roof, as if she's actually about to jump. She takes a deep, shuddering breath and turns to meet Haymitch's burning gray eyes, searching her face for an answer.

"I was just looking at the view," she says feebly.

"Mhm." Haymitch makes a disbelieving noise. Chrissy sighs and flicks her eyes around the Capital.

"Is this all we'll ever be? Slaves of the Capitol?"

Haymitch pulls away and looks into Chrissy's eyes. "I don't know." He pauses. "Why do you always have to ask all these questions? Why can't you just let it lie for once?"

"Because I can't! I can't live this way! There has to be something more!" Chrissy exclaims, her eyes searing into Haymitch's.

"What is it you want Chrissy?" Haymitch demands. "Is being a Victor not enough for you? Is having enough food and money to last a lifetime and a nice place to live not enough? Am I not enough for you?"

There's a long silence between them and Chrissy turns away from Haymitch. "I don't know."

"Well, let me know when you figure it out!" Haymitch snarls. "I'll be on level twelve, teaching my tributes!" He spits the word tributes at her and it cuts into her flesh as though it were a real weapon. A reminder of what she's here for, of what her life has become. He spins on his heel and strides off towards the elevator, and for the first time, she's not slightly tempted to call him back.


	42. Effie's Shock

She just stands, letting the cold Capitol wind bite through her thin shirt, and thinks. Perhaps she is being selfish. After the year of separation, that isn't exactly what she's pictured her reunion with Haymitch to be. She knows she ought to go apologize, but she hates the idea. Instead she stands out on the roof, watching the Capitol slowly close down, save the nightclubs. When she at last shakes off the cloud of pensiveness clinging to her and meanders down to the elevator, she presses 12, knowing Haymitch wouldn't be asleep.

She knocks on his door, and sure enough, a surly Haymitch answers the door. Chrissy can smell the wine on his breath. "Been drinking?" she asks nastily.

"What do you want?" Haymitch demands, staring her down.

Chrissy takes a deep breath, reminding herself that she's not here for a confrontation. "Look…about earlier…I was just feeling depressed, okay? This whole trip does tend to get you down," she says wryly. "Anyway, it's been a year since we've seen each other, I don't want to spend our few weeks fighting. Again."

Haymitch scowls and then throws open the door for her. She tosses her coat and shoes off and flops down on the bed. "It's hot in here!" she exclaims.

"So?" Haymitch says sullenly. "I like it hot."

Chrissy rolls her eyes. "You're like a little kid, Haymitch."

"Because you're so mature!" he snorts, taking a swig from a nearby bottle. Chrissy gets up and works the bottle out of Haymitch's hand. "I think you'd like me mature," she says in her best seductive voice, looking up at Haymitch from under her eyelashes. Haymitch stares at her for a long moment, fumbling for something to say, but before he can gather his thoughts, Chrissy laughs and walks away, setting the bottle on a bedside table.

"Boys are so predictable," she snickers.

They chill in Haymitch's room for a bit, talking, playing poker with some cards they found. It's around 3 that they finally go to bed. Chrissy puts on some boxer shorts and a t-shirt, which she ends up taking off anyway, because it's too hot. It's not like she has all that much to show off anyway. She curls up on the edge of the bed and drifts off.

A dull hammering sound floods her dreams, becoming louder, louder…and then Effie's screech penetrates the air, jolting Chrissy and Haymitch out of their peaceful sleep.

"_What is she doing here?"_

"Oh, hell," Haymitch muttered. "Effie, what are you doing in my room?"

"Trying to get you up for breakfast!" Effie cried indignantly as Chrissy grabs for her shirt, discarded on the floor. "And now I see what you've been doing!"

Chrissy and Haymitch lock eyes for a moment, barely holding back laughter. "Yeah, you caught us Effie," Chrissy says sarcastically. This is lost on Effie, who grabs the girl's wrist and drags her from the room and down the hall to the elevator. About halfway down, Chrissy calls loudly to Haymitch, who's leaning in his doorway, "If you find my bra, give it back, will you?" The whole situation is so ridiculous; she can't help but overdramatize it.

"Sure thing, sweetheart!" Haymitch yells back. "But won't you be back tonight?"

"You know it!" Effie gives Chrissy's arm a jerk. "Stop that!" she hisses.

"Good-bye, my love!" Chrissy nearly screams.

"Oh, the light fades from my world with your departure!" Haymitch responds. They're both cracking up, barely holding it together. The District 12 tributes are peeking out of their rooms now, wide-eyed.

Effie shoves Chrissy into the elevator and she collapses against the far wall, weak with laughter. When she gets out on the ninth floor, her clothes in order, she's still laughing hard enough to make her muscles sore.

"What's so funny?" Trisha demands as Chrissy walks into the dining room, attempting to sober up for the sake of the ashen faced tributes before her.

"Effie," she manages, shaking her head.


	43. Looks can Be Decieving

She sits down at the table and examines her tributes, nibbling on a bit of bacon. She expertly drains the emotion from her mind and examines her tributes with a critical eye. Beth is a small, mousy-haired 13 year- old who Chrissy can tell would grow up to be beautiful, once she evened out. Terrence is a tall, lanky 15 year- old with a pale complexion and straw-blonde hair. "So you two," she drawls, spreading jam over a bit of toast. "Skills?"

Beth looks meekly up from her plate. "I'm pretty good with a knife," she says in barely a whisper.

Terrence shrugs. "I dunno. I'm pretty good at identifying plants. And I can swing a sword."

"That's a good start," Chrissy says, excited by the possibility of winners. "Being able to feed yourself is a big part of the Games. I'll be coaching you, Beth, and Jamir will-hang on, where is he?" She looks over at Trisha.

"He left after you came back."

Chrissy rolls her eyes. "Well, he'll be coaching you, Terrence."

They finish the rest of breakfast and Chrissy takes Beth into a separate, empty room and gives her a knife. Pulling out her own she says, "Try to hit me."

"But I don't want to hurt you," Beth protests.

"Just try," Chrissy says, confident that Beth isn't a serious threat. Beth narrows her eyes and takes an offensive stance. She circles Chrissy for a moment or two, then lashes out with surprising speed and strength and Chrissy barely manages to drive her knife away from her gut. "Damn!"

Beth glares at Chrissy. "You said go for it!"

Chrissy shakes her head. "That was good. Let's see if you can do it again." With that challenge hanging in the air, she takes a defensive stance. They practice all day and Beth proves to be vicious with a knife, much stronger and quicker than she appeared. Her weak, sniveling demeanor vanished and her face twisted up with anger and fierce determination. When they finished, both girls were sweaty and panting and had gone way over their allotted time for battle training. "That wasn't bad," Chrissy grunts, sheathing her knife. "Keep that up in the arena and you might do alright."

"Thanks, I think," Beth gasps. "What should I do for my interview?"

"Keep up the little girl act. Make sure the other think you're no threat. You're just a nice girl in a bad situation."

"Right." Beth nods.

They bail out to the dining hall where Trisha's waiting. "Where have you two been?" she asks testily. "I've been waiting for hours!"

"We were training!" Chrissy snaps before Beth has a chance to answer. "Beth actually has talent."

"She needs to train for her interview!"

"This is more important! If she can't defend herself, it doesn't matter how many sponsors she has!" Chrissy argued, drawing herself up to her full and considerable height. "She needs to learn to fight much more than she needs to learn to be a perfect little star!"

Trisha shrank under Chrissy's fierce gaze. "Well, next time have her to me on time!" she squeaks indignantly and scuttles off to the table. After they finish dinner, Chrissy and Jamir stay behind to exchange tribute info. "How's Beth?" Jamir asks.

"She's wicked with a knife! It's amazing, she nearly disarmed me her first strike!"

Jamir whistles softly. "Impressive. And I had her down as a weakling."

"Me too," Chrissy says, taking a long sip of red wine.

"Terrence's alright, I suppose…his real talent is with words though. Absolute charmer." Jamir rolls the words out as he pours himself some wine.

"Well, he's pretty cute; he should have no problem getting sponsors."

"Yeah, I bet. I bet you wanna sponsor him," Jamir gave a drunken grin.

Chrissy rolls her eyes and punches him in the arm. "Shut it, Jamir, before you get yourself in trouble."

"Right, right, you're too busy sponsoring Haymitch."

This time Chrissy really slugs him.

"Ow! Dammit!"

Terrence does average on his Training score and Beth snags a nine, which makes Trisha cheer. Chrissy's riding on a high, starting to really believe she can get one of these kids home. Their interviews go well too. Beth comes across as a wimpy little girl who couldn't kill a bug, and Terrence just kills the crowd with that winning, lopsided grin. Afterwards, Chrissy walks Beth to her room, discussing strategy for the Games. Beth hesitates at her door and turns to Chrissy. "How old are you?" she asks.

Bewildered by Beth's sudden interest in her, Chrissy says, "Uh, 19. Almost 20. Why?"

"Just…curious," Beth says, with an odd look of regret on her face. She turns away and vanishes into her room. Disturbed, Chrissy passes the next few hours tossing and turning in bed with insomnia until she's in a tangled knot of sheets and has knocked both quilts and her pillow off the bed. She must fall asleep sometime though, because when Trisha hammers on her door, it startles her so she falls of the bed, so knotted up in the sheets it takes five minutes to extricate herself. When she finally stumbles down to breakfast, Terrence is already there, with dark circles under his eyes, looking like he's going to be sick.

"Relax, Terrence," Jamir growls. "You need to eat!"

"I'm not hungry." It looks like this has been going on for a while.

"Eat that food now, or I'll shove it down your throat," Chrissy says simply, sitting down across from Terrence, who actually scoots away as he glares at her. "You won't win jackfish if you're starving."

Terrence sullenly stabs a bit of pork and begins to eat as Beth walks into the room, looking nervous, but under control. She loads her plate and chows down next to Trisha. Jamir looks over at Chrissy, impressed. "You know, I have to hand it to you: you really get the job done, even if in a coarse and threatening manner."

"Thanks."

After breakfast, as usual, Chrissy shakes her tribute's hand and whishes them good luck. "I really think you two have a chance," she says earnestly. "You're the best tribute's I've mentored yet. I wish you the best of luck. It's been a pleasure."

Beth startles her by throwing her arms around the older girl's neck. "I hope everything goes okay for you too!" she cries. Then she boards the hovercraft, leaving Terrence to glance back at Chrissy and shrug. "Maybe it's a chick thing," he says as he turns and boards.

Chrissy rolls her eyes at the comment and boards the next hovercraft with Jamir and Trisha.

"You know, the first day's always the worst," Trisha says unexpectedly.

Jamir and Chrissy both look at Trisha and then nod slowly in agreement.

"It is," Jamir says heavily.


	44. Love Found, Love Lost

It's a good thing Terrence knows about plants, because three hours later, when Chrissy and Jamir get their first glance at the arena, they see it's a swamp. Plants everywhere, very few useful ones, with a very out- of- place mountain at one end. Terrence and Beth split, grab some supplies and some backpacks and take off.

Days pass, and they're still around. There's a lot of cover though, and the Games are getting slow, so the Gamemakers launch some freak alligator mutts into the arena. Seven tributes lose their lives to the jaws of the alligator mutts. Chrissy knows they'll join the multitude of subjects that parade in her nightmares. But for the first time since Chrissy became a mentor, both District 9 tributes make it to the final eight. That night, when Jamir suggests Chrissy take the night off, she runs off to tell Haymitch about her tributes. She pops her head into his Monitoring Room and says, "Meet me at the park. 5 minutes." She's not sure how he'll get away, but she decides that's his problem, and goes to the park, climbs into the tree and sits down to wait.

When he comes jogging over several minutes later, she drops down behind him. "Hey sweetheart." He spins around and she sees his eyes spark when they land on her and feels a rush of warmth. "Guess what? Beth and Terrence both made it into the final eight!"

Haymitch nods. "So did Rajiv and Cassie."

"Maybe we have a chance!" Chrissy says excitedly. "Maybe one of us can bring one home!"

Haymitch grins and grabs her hand, pulling her close. "I know what I want to bring home."

Chrissy gives a sly smile and leans in. "Well…I might just be giving."

They start kissing there, and continue in their own little world to that destitute hotel Chrissy stayed in her first night. They go into their room and Chrissy pulls Haymitch against her, his kisses lighting a fire in her stomach, better than any kind of alcohol. His hands caress her face, her hair, her neck, her waist, each touch burning like flame and ice. She wraps her arms around his back and knots her fingers through his curly hair, refusing to let go, even when he sweeps her off her feet. He tosses her down on the bed and Chrissy grabs the front of his shirt and pulls him down on top of her.

"Chrissy…I think I love you," Haymitch pants, tugging at his shirt to get it off over his head.

"Shut up!" she exclaims and crushes her mouth against his again.

Chrissy is swept away; overwhelmed by the passion flooding through her and Haymitch's every move. The summer heat is sweltering and already they're both sweaty and overheated, but she could care less about that. They once more dive into a sea of uncertainty, unable to fight the current, but allow themselves to relax in its tug. They do not surface until nearly the next morning.

Chrissy wakes up sometime in the middle of the night, giddy with bliss. She rolls over and rests her head on Haymitch's hot, bare chest. He's fast asleep, his curls askew over his face and for the moment she's more than thrilled to just bask in his closeness. She hoists herself up on her elbow and leans in to whisper in his ear. "Haymitch…I think I love you too."

She lies back down, closes her eyes and gives a contented sigh, completely unaware of the other's presence until a hand clamps over her mouth and two more pull her off the bed.

As she prepares to kick her assailant in the gut, she catches a glimpse of familiar turquoise eyes through the large hood of a cloak. _Xenia?_

"Shh!" Xenia hisses. "We don't have much time. Get your shirt on and come with us."

Utterly bewildered, Chrissy tugs on her shirt and slips her shoes on without bothering over socks. She follows Xenia and the other figure, which she thinks is another woman, but it's hard to tell in the darkness. They lead her down through the ancient hotel, deep into the cellar, and then they pull off their cloaks. She sees that is indeed Xenia, her stylist, and someone else she recognizes as Haymitch's stylist.

"What the hell are you doing?" she yelps. "Coming here in the middle of the night…how did you even find us?"

"Jamir made a conjecture when you didn't show up back in the Monitoring Room, and the man downstairs confirmed and gave us you room number," Xenia says breathlessly. "But enough of that! You're in danger!"

"What are you talking about?" Chrissy asks angrily. "The only thing I'm in danger of right now is breaking my knuckles on your nose!"

"Quiet!" implores the other woman, though they must be a good ways underground by now. The floor is dirt and it the air is frigid and dry. "We brought you here so no one from the Capitol would overhear us. We think you're being monitored."

"Monitored?" Chrissy repeats uneasily. "What do you mean?"

Xenia takes a deep breath and flashes the other woman a heartsick look. "Chrissy…We think Snow is going to make another attempt to force you into prostitution."

"How? He already killed everyone I loved!" Chrissy explodes, her eyes blazing.

Xenia pauses to compose herself and Haymitch's stylist interjects, "You've given him a new target." Her eyes beg Chrissy to understand, the magenta swirls on her face standing out against her pale flesh. A boulder has just rolled into place inside Chrissy's stomach, cutting off her breathing. She meets the eyes of the women and breaths, "Haymitch?"


	45. Can't you see? Can't you see the blood?

In answer, Xenia gives a tragic nod. "We came to warn you."

"But what can I do? I won't let them kill Haymitch!" Chrissy declares hotly.

"Well…Ava, why don't you explain?" Xenia says.

Ava steps forward and says, "We think it may be possible for you to cut off your relationship here. If you can make Snow believe it was a one-night fling, he'll toss it aside as a plan. But you'd have to really convince everyone, especially Haymitch, to believe you weren't interested in a long term relationship. Because if you don't, he'll have Haymitch trapped too, and there's a good deal of women who'd pay for him as well."

"But…surely Snow isn't so set on having me whored out as to track my relationships!" Chrissy theorizes, not really believing it.

Xenia sighs. "Chrissy, half the men in the Capitol are rabid for you. It's not about you; it's about wanting to think they broke the iron will of Chrissy van Pelt. They just want to dominate over you. And you'd be worth a lot of money. Part of that's my fault," Xenia says miserably. "I made you into something desirable. I made you the sexy huntress. Dangerous, wild, unpredictable and passionate."

Chrissy gives a bitter laugh. "Don't sweat it Xenia. It's not your fault, and I'll ignore the implications that I'm not attractive enough on my own. Snow's a ruthless, controlling bastard and that's all there is to it. As for Haymitch…" Her voice softens. "What can I say?"

"You have to say something," Ava says firmly. "It's his heart or his life, Chrissy. If you're going to do it, do it SOON."

Chrissy feels anger roiling in her blood, but forces it down. She can rage later, right now she needs a plan.

"We have to go now," Xenia says, drawing her hood up over her face. "Remember Chrissy: You must be convincing! You never cared about Haymitch Abernathy, and you never will."

The two stylists depart and Chrissy gives them a bit of a head start, so it won't look suspicious when she comes up twenty minutes later. She drags her feet in the hall, sick to her stomach with what she must do. "Of all the things Snow's made me do," she whispers, "This is the cruelest." And on the very night she's finally sure she loves Haymitch! She doesn't think this is coincidence. She opens the door to their room, wiping her face of emotion. She dresses silently and swiftly, gathers her things and pauses in the middle of the room. She walks over to Haymitch and looks at his sleeping face, peaceful for once. Relaxed and at ease, knowing he'll wake from any nightmares with the girl he loves beside him. And she's about to take that away. She leans down and kisses him softly on the lips. "Goodbye, sweetheart," she whispers, hopefully too soft for the supposed cameras to pick up. "I'm sorry, Haymitch."

She leans up, with a cool look of detachment on her face and strides out the door, closing it quietly behind her. She walks straight back to the Monitoring Room and moves to drop her jacket on the cot.

"Where've you been?" Jamir asks.

"Around," Chrissy says vaguely.

"With Haymitch, I assume."

"Not anymore," Chrissy says coolly. The words threaten to stick in her throat.

Jamir gives her a curious look. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, we're done. I got what I wanted. It's over. I was right from the first meeting: He's a selfish bastard."

Jamir scoffs. "Uh-huh. We'll see how long this lasts." He gets up and lies down on the cot with a yawn. "Your watch. They're both doing great. At this rate it might come down to both of 'em."

Later that day, though, Beth gets a bad bite from one of the three-foot mosquitos that buzz around the arena. Chrissy sends her some food and fresh water because they can't afford medication. It's easy to avoid Haymitch, especially after his tributes are killed and he returns to the Capitol. Three days after the news about Snow's interference, Beth is killed by a strange, poison fog that creeps through her part of the swamp. It also kills her ally, a fifteen year old girl from District 5. Chrissy leaps to her feet, frozen in horror as Beth begins to choke, run, then trip and fall to her knees, clutching her throat and trying to drag herself along. Then she just collapses and the cannon booms a moment later. Just like that, the strongest tribute Chrissy's ever had is dead.

It turns out to be the longest they've ever stayed, because in the end, Terrence wins the Games. When Chrissy looks into his eyes on camera, she can't cheer for him, although even now the camera crews are beating down her door, wanting quotes and interviews, because she sees the same look in his eyes that was in hers when she won. And she knows she has not done him a favor.

Just when she's thinking she'll get through this visit without seeing Haymitch, she sees him in the train station. She could duck away before he sees her, but she recognizes that she owes him an explanation, even if it is a total lie. She can't leave him hanging. So she stands still and nonchalant as he approaches.

"What happened to you?" Haymitch asks, wary hurt lingering in his eyes. "Where'd you go? D'Jamir call you or something? Congrats on Terrence winning, by the way."

"Look, Haymitch," Chrissy begins, a bit condescendingly. "It's over, kay?"

"What?"

"It's over, alright? I left because I got what I wanted. And now we're done." Chrissy is stunned that Haymitch can't see the dagger lodged in her heart. Absently, she's aware that other Victors and mentors are watching.

"You lied to me!" Haymitch exclaims.

"I think that's pretty clear," Chrissy says, rolling her eyes. "But it's not like I ever said I loved you."

Haymitch stares at her, disbelieving. "You cold-hearted bitch," he says slowly. "I can't believe you led me on like that!" Each word pushes the dagger deeper into her. She wishes Haymitch would slap her. She deserves it.

"Sorry, sweetheart, but that's the way it rolls in the Capitol," she says airily, using sweetheart as a term of mocking. That really jerks on her memories; she's only ever used sweetheart as a term of endearment, and it was the only pet name she had for her lover. With that, she turns on her heel and strides off into her train car before she does something really stupid, like start crying. She can feel the stunned eyes of the crowd on her back, but the gaze that pierces straight into her heart is Jamir's. She knows that Haymitch is utterly broken-hearted now, but the look on Jamir's face as she passed was one of utter disgust. Dully, in the back of her mind, she thinks it's good that Terrence won, since Jamir hates her now; at least she won't have to make this trip with him ever again.


	46. Broken

This note was not my idea. I wasn't going to put it in, but we all know how stubborn Chrissy can be, and she just wouldn't let it rest. So here it is:

* * *

*Note from Chrissy*

If you're reading this, you're probably waiting to hear how I turned around and ran back to tell Haymitch everything and how we came up with a plan to cheat the Capitol. Well, it didn't happen. Because life isn't a fairy tale, and some people never have happy endings. Some of us are destined to go through life miserable, and are expected to shut up a bear our wretched loads. I'm not going to whine about what happened. It did and there was nothing I could do about it. End of story. That chapter of my life is over and mourning over it isn't going to bring Haymitch back, or kill president Snow, or make Jamir forgive me. It's not going to save the tributes that lost their lives under my guidance, or bring my siblings back to me. It's just going to make me drink more, and that's the last thing I need.

Goodness, I wonder where she gets all that cynicism?

* * *

That day marks what would be one of the most significant shifts in Chrissy's life. Henceforth, she accepts her role as a broken Victor. She didn't fight it anymore; she's so _tired _of having to fight. Shestops exercising regularly and spend entire days sitting at her family's graves. She very quickly becomes an alcoholic; though she still refuses to drink anything but wine. She watches Terrence fall apart as well, though she makes sure his family stays with him through it. She realizes what it is, is that Victors are like broken pillars. They need to lean on somebody, or they'll crumble and fall to the ground. She has no one around to remind her to stand up straight and not fall down, and fall she does. Within weeks of her fourth return to the Capitol, she has the look of dull hatred and helplessness that all Victors sport. Of course, she avoids Haymitch like the plague; it's very clear how much he despises her now. Everyone who was on the train station that day hates her as well, and it's then that she picks up the whispers of her new nickname: Ice Queen. And that's the nicest one they have.

The next year, her tributes are Cassie Ferguson, 14, and Danny Kite, also 14. They're both sweet kids, good friends, and they both show promise. Chrissy trains them hard and long, to the point to where the protest and she snarls, "Get back over there! More training means a better chance of winning, now run it again!"

But that year, when the gong sounds, there's only spiked maces as weapons. The sword and dagger training Chrissy put them through during their Training Days is useless. She watches as child after child is clubbed to death with those wretched maces. During the bloodbath, it gets to the point where Terrence can't watch anymore and is just lying on the cot, vomiting on the floor and sobbing while Chrissy wills Cassie and Danny on from the Monitoring Room. Ironically, Danny is killed by the District 12 tributes. His screams punctuate the night air, tormented and gurgling as blood streams from his mouth and wounds. The girl who got in the first strike has tears streaming down her cheeks as she frantically tries to end Danny's pain. At last, in desperation, she tries to crush his skull, but lacks the strength. So she hits him over and over and over again until he finally bleeds to death, and then she breaks down entirely. Chrissy pities her as well; she surely won't be getting any sponsors after that performance. She watches Cassie, so desperate to save her from an end like Danny's, there are moment when she's on her feet, screaming and swearing at Cassie to run, duck, eat, sleep, hide, live.

Terrence seems genuinely frightened by her intensity, and she can tell he's just waiting for her to snap. Maybe she already has. Cassie dies in the final 9, dying of thirst in the rocky, mountain arena. At least it wasn't the maces.

The next decade passes in the same fashion. A few Games stand out. The year of the Spiked Maces. The year of the Island Terrain. The year where Mutts Ran Rampant. The year Finnick Odair won, at the tender age of 14. The Victors discuss these years some times. As a way to take their mind of the current Games, a way to say it could be worse. A few stand out more to Chrissy than the rest of the Victors. The year where Kayanna's daughter died. The year where Jamir died, alone at home in the Victor's Village. The year where one of her tribute's mothers attacked her on the train station on her return and had to be pulled off by a Peacekeeper. She was later killed. Chrissy hadn't even fought back. How could she? Wasn't she supposed to bring the woman's son home? And now his body was in the box off to the side of the station, awaiting burial. But, in the midst of all the tragedy and suffering, another change in her life was rapidly approaching, unbeknownst to Chrissy.

It was two years after the year of the Child Prodigy Finnick Odair, and her tributes were Melanie, a 12 year old, and Carson, a 16 year old. She herself was 29, approximately. She'd stopped keeping track, but the numbers still registered. Chrissy spends all of the first day uncovering their strengths. Melanie has a great memory for plants and knots and Carson is very quick to strike in battle. She keeps them up later than Trisha would like, but Terrence backs her up on the need to train them well. Around 11:00, she finally releases them to bed and Terrence follows. Chrissy, wanting some space, heads up to the best thinking place in the Training Center, praying to any deity above that no one is there. Whether by luck or a God of some kind, the roof is empty. She stands on the far edge, resting her arms on the chilly rail. Absently, she feels her hair brushing her shoulders and thinks she ought to have the prep team cut it.

Her mind is thick with thoughts and nostalgia, and it's one of those nights were every regret you ever had comes rushing back and you can't help but wonder what if things had gone differently. So it's a surprise for her when she realizes the roof is NOT empty. There's a piercing howl of, "It's not right!" from off to her left. Curiosity aroused, she slowly heads over. She takes out a miniature flashlight from her pocket, which she'd made sure to bring up here, and shines it over towards the garden, at whose edge she stands. It lands on the tear-stained face of a 16 year old boy. But not just any boy. Her light caught the sea-green irises of Finnick Odair.

"Hey!" he tries to snap, but he hiccups in the middle of it.

"What are you doing up here?" she asks, ignoring him.

"Not really any of your business, is it?" Finnick says, attempting to regain his usual smoothness.

Chrissy flicks her eyes over him and makes an assumption. "Snow get to you?"

"Excuse me?"

"Snow. He's selling you out, isn't he?"

Finnick opens his mouth to protest, then shuts it. "Yeah. He is," the boy mutters.

Chrissy crosses over and sits down next to Finnick. "He tried to do that to me, too," she says.

"Really?" Finnick turns to look at Chrissy with wide green eyes. "What'd you do?"

Chrissy sighs heavily. "I said no."

"You can do that?" Incredulous.

"Sure you can. But you pay for it. He firebombed my house, killing my entire family." Even after all these years, the words stick in her throat.

The hope that had flared in Finnick's eyes is quashed. "Oh. Then there's nothing you can do?"

Chrissy shook her head. "Nope."

Tears began to leak from his eyes again and he hung his head in his hands. "I hate this!" he cries in a muffled voice. "It's only been one night and I can't stand it!"

Chrissy flips off her flashlight and looks up at the few stars that were visible in the Capitol. "You don't have a choice, kid. If I hadn't been such an arrogant fool, I'd be in your place as well, but at least my family would be alive."

Finnick makes a larger effort to pull himself together. "How long can Snow keep this going?"

"For you? Probably until you die, Finnick. The women are nuts about you."

"I know. Even the ones old enough to be my grandmother," he grumbles. "How come other Victors don't have to do this?"

"Some do. Only the ones who are attractive enough and have the leverage of a family or loved one can be used," Chrissy explains. Finnick looks so miserable, Chrissy feels bad for him. After all, she could easily have been in his place. Snow's words echo in her head: _"Men adore your fire, and would pay well to feel that they had…broken you." _She claps a hand on his shoulder. "It's the path of the Victors, Finnick, and it ain't a pretty one. Brace up, you can do it."

Finnick looks up at her and wipes his face off on his sleeve. "I have to," he says. They're silent for a bit, watching the Capitol nightlife, and then Finnick says with a touch of his old charm, "I really liked that piece you did called 'Hello'. Would you sing it again?"

"Sure," Chrissy allows. She sits up, cross-legged and sings the song for Finnick.

"I watched you tape," Finnick began. "I heard you sing 'Danny Boy'. Did you know that song came from District 4?"

"I didn't."

"I always loved that song."

"Can you sing it?" Chrissy asks, suddenly looking critically at Finnick, who shrugs. "I could try." Finnick clears his throat and sings _Danny Boy_ for Chrissy, who's smirking mischievously by the end. "Uh-oh. I don't like that look," Finnick says warily.

"I think I've finally found my singing partner," Chrissy says triumphantly. She feels a pang, remembering her pitiful attempts to teach Haymitch to sing. She pushes this away and focuses on Finnick. "Do you know the lyrics to my song _Bring me to Life_?"


	47. The Odd Couple

Hey guys! Sorry for the delay, I was experiencing lack of motivation. I know this one's short, but it ends at a good spot, and I figured you'd rather have a short chapter than none at all. Enjoy!

* * *

"No, no, no! Higher, Finnick, higher!"

"I'm not a girl! My voice doesn't go that high!"

"You're a tenor, Finnick. Guys can have high voices too, and that note is well within your range! Now hit it!" Chrissy commands. She and Finnick are down in the Victor's lounge, isolated despite the other Victors around them. Only Terrence, playing pool with a girl from 5, pays them the slightest attention.

Finnick obediently reaches his voice up to hit the proper note in Chrissy's latest song. She gives a satisfied smile. "Much better! Now finish it!" She's a very demanding mentor, but though Finnick growls with impatience, they're still friends. They spend time together whenever they can, though they're careful to show only careless affection for each other. Chrissy is not having a repeat of what's known as The Incident in her mind.

Melanie and Carson are shaping up well enough, although Chrissy doubts the survival of either of them, and has shared this with Terrence, who long ago gave up being horrified by her indifference. In fact, he's starting to pick up on it himself. Chrissy once had a passing thought that she ought to prevent that, but she didn't really have the energy to protect him from it, so she let it go.

Later, after their tributes had gone to bed, Chrissy meets Finnick outside the Training Center, dressed in her dark jeans and a black blouse she found in her Capitol room. They don't talk about the Games, or the Capitol, or anything depressing or cruel, which rules out a good portion of their past, current and future lives. Often they speak of home, but only the good things. "Same spot as last time?" Finnick questions.

Chrissy nods. "Let's go."

They walk through the crowded Capitol streets, people gawking at them and whispering. They both have their reps in the Capitol. Finnick Wonder Boy and Chrissy Ice Queen. Finnick stops at a bar with neon lights and holds the door open for Chrissy who rolls her eyes at the gesture. _As if I'm any lady,_ she thinks bitingly.

The odd couple takes a seat at the bar, lined at the top and bottom with purple neon. The room itself is dark, lit only by dim lamps and the ever-present neon. A glass shelf full of bottles faces them from their seats on the end of the bar. Chrissy orders their drinks and leans forward to rest her elbows on the edge of the bar with a sigh.

"Tribute trouble?" Finnick asks.

"I-we're-they're gonna die, Finnick, I just know it," Chrissy says at last.

Finnick's sea-green eyes take on a seriousness that's rare for him. "What're you gonna do?" he mumbles.

Chrissy just shrugs. She takes her wine and sits up straighter. "So, you told me you worked on a fishing boat before this. What was that like? I only caught a glimpse of the ocean from my Victory Tour."

"Well, it's big and blue," Finnick says. He sits back as if that's all he had to say. Chrissy gives him a look and he grins. "Well, the water is salty and sprays in your face. Sometimes there are just little ripples and sometimes there's huge waves! Usually only when there's a storm or a swell coming in though. Tons of animals live there, crabs and fish and dolphins and sharks. If you see the bottom, there are plants down there too."

Chrissy listens attentively, though her eyes drift around to catch snippets of anything interesting going on around them. Finnick tells her about the time his friend Alex threw a crab at him and it latched onto his nose and they had to use pliers to get it off. "I used to have a scar, but the Capitol took it off." He sounds a bit proud of it. Even Chrissy has to laugh a little at that story, her eyes fixed distantly on the door. When it bangs open, her eyes lock with steely gray ones for just a heartbeat, the laughter still frozen on her face and in that moment she realizes how close she and Finnick are sitting, and the shirt she's wearing and the fact that she's laughing, _laughing_, and the whole thing seems so wrong, before Haymitch closes the door again and vanishes in the Capitol crowd.


	48. It's a Mad World

_Damn! Damn! What a tramp I look like!_ She thinks furiously.

"Chrissy? You okay?" Finnick asks, and she feels the deep scowl on her face and shakes it off.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she says absently.

Finnick doesn't buy it. He looks back and forth between Chrissy's agonized eyes and the door and then says, "You and Haymitch?"

Chrissy takes a long sip of wine and when she looks at Finnick she looks a thousand years old. "Not anymore."

"What happened?"

"Snow happened," Chrissy says bitterly, sloshing down more wine. "As if it weren't enough that he took my family!" She laughs and humorless, hopeless laugh.

"He used Haymitch against you?" Finnick whispers, leaning closer to her. Chrissy nods sadly. "He tried. I refused to give him that chance. Anyway, I ought to let it go. It's been almost 10 years."

"Snow shouldn't be able to do that," Finnick said, his eyes smoldering with injustice. "He shouldn't be able to do whatever he wants."

"Yeah, well who's gonna stop him, darling? You?" Chrissy knocks back the rest of her wine and slams her hand down on the counter for another. Finnick looks thoughtful, but says nothing.

They stay out obscenely late and come back reeling drunk. Finnick is laughing loudly enough to wake the dead and keeps trying to sing some old District 4 folk songs in a slurred voice. Chrissy tries to shut him up, but mostly she's focusing on keeping her feet straight. She's noticed over the years that there are two kinds of drunks. The ones who get loud and obnoxious like Finnick, and the ones who get quiet and angry like her and Haymitch. With every glass of wine she gets quieter and quieter and focuses on her inner fury and bitterness, while actually speaking or listening becomes less and less important because Finnick can't tell if she's paying attention or not and doesn't really care.

The next day, when the tributes go into the arena, Chrissy meets Finnick outside the elevator on the fourth floor. He's rubbing his temples with a splitting headache she shares and she feels a bit guilty about letting the kid drink so much. He's only 16 after all.

They send their tributes off and begin the usual stint in the Monitoring Room. The arena is a large grass field with willow trees and ponds covering a large portion of it. At one end, there's a massive dam that lets a trickle of fresh water into the arena. Melanie makes it out of the bloodbath fine, but Carson has the nerve to ignore Chrissy and Terrence's advice and dive for a backpack near the edge of the Cornucopia. He's dead just as his fingers touch the strap.

Chrissy swears and Terrence just shakes his head. "There's another one," he says softly.

He and Chrissy trade off shifts, as always, and when Chrissy has a free moment, she goes to visit Finnick. His male tribute was beheaded, and the girl's grief shows no signs of abating. Rather the contrary, the poor child is losing her mind.

She leans in the doorway, casting a shadow in the rectangle of light created by the open door. "Hey Finnick. I'm sorry about your tribute. That was pretty gruesome."

"I don't want to talk about it," Finnick says severely.

Chrissy nods, understanding. "Well…I just wanted to say it's not your fault. We all lose tributes and there's nothing you can do. I still dream about Danny dying on the end of that spiked mace," Chrissy says in a shaky voice, her gut twisted. She'll never forgive herself for not sparing him that agonizing death.

Back in her own Monitoring Room, Terrence is holding up alright. Chrissy sits down in her chair and relieves him of duty. She watches as Melanie creeps through the willows, oblivious that she's about to blunder right into the Career's camp. Chrissy grips the edge of the counter so hard her knuckles are white, when all of a sudden, a hand flashes out from behind a tree, covering Melanie's mouth. Another wraps around her waist and pulls her behind the tree. Chrissy shifts the camera with the joystick so she can see what's going on. It's the mad girl from 4! She's pulled Melanie away from the Careers! She puts a finger to her lips to say "Shh!" and begins to sneak off. She turns back to see Melanie standing in the same spot and motions with wide green eyes for her to follow. Reluctantly, warily, Melanie follows the girl through the trees.

Her name is Annie, and she doesn't speak much at all. Her eyes are always flicking around, as if she expects danger to leap out from every leaf, which is pretty much how the arena feels. She and Melanie team up unspokenly. Chrissy could throttle Melly. Idiot! An insane girl can't win! She'll only slow Melanie down!

Just as Chrissy feared, Annie proves to be only a burden on poor Melanie, who bears up under the pressure, but has to take care of everything. Annie would have been long dead without Melanie, which is perhaps why she rescued the girl in the first place. But on the 11th day in the arena, Annie more than proves her worth. Or maybe it was just luck. Chrissy tends to think the latter.

Melanie and Annie were sitting around a miniscule fire, warming their hands and eating a sparrow that Melanie had caught earlier. It was slim pickings and Chrissy could hear their stomachs growling from the Monitoring Room. It's then that she catches a loud popping sound, followed by an earsplitting crack, and instantly, before she glances at the screen showing the tributes nearest to the dam, that it's broken.

"Terrence! The dam broke! Terrence, wake up!" Chrissy shrieks. Terrence is up in a flash, brushing his golden blonde hair out of his face, looking wild eyed at the screens. The camp of the kids from 5 erupts in screaming and panic as chunks of cement topple off of the massive dam and crash down into the grass, flattening a boy from 3. The kids begin to run in a uniform direction now, AWAY. One girl stops to climb a tree, perhaps seeking safety in height. But the wave that comes barreling down through the arena eclipses her willow tree and swallows up everything in its path. Annie and Melanie can see the trouble coming, though they have yet to guess its nature. "Abandon camp!" Melanie yells. She grabs Annie's hand and starts to pull her away. "Come on Annie!"

Annie is frozen in fear, her eyes the size of dinner plates, her mouth gaping in terror as the wind from the force of the wave whips her brown hair around her like a curtain. Melanie jerks the girl along after her, desperate to keep moving, to get away. The wave snaps the trees behind them like toothpicks and as the girls see what they're up against, their eyes become crazed with fear and Melanie screams. Annie's lips are moving soundlessly, like the scream is frozen inside her. The wave slams into the ground just behind them and yanks them both of their feet, and they disappear into the wall of blue.


	49. Drinking

Another update! Yay! Review guys, I love getting your reviews! It's sugar for the plowhorse, if you will. More is always better.

Okay, so it has recently been brought to my attention that I have some errors in my timeline. Apparently, Annie won the 70th Games, but I have her winning before that. Because I'm lazy and don't care that much, I'm not going to change it, so I'm sorry if it bothers you.

* * *

"Melanie!" Chrissy yelps.

"Melly!" Terrence cries.

For a moment, there's silence, only static in Chrissy's earpiece and the sight of the wave destroying the rest of the arena, and then Annie's head breaks the surface of the water. "Melanie!" she chokes. "Melanie!" She dives beneath the water, but comes up empty handed. "Melanie!" she howls. She's paddling frantically, trying to stay afloat, trying to keep her head above water. Chrissy watches as every other tribute falls to the wave, every other camp is destroyed, and she realizes just before the trumpets blow, and the wave hits the out wall of the arena, leaving Annie in a sodden heap on the grass, that the mad girl from 4 won the Games.

Of course she and Finnick go out that night to celebrate. They had planned on bringing Annie with, but she was, although physically okay, still totally nuts. So they left her back at the hospital and went down to Midnight Flows with just the two of them. It was quickly becoming their "usual spot". Which also meant gossip about the two of them was running rampant, especially because Finnick often had to cancel because he'd be spending his evening with another woman. Chrissy was cool with that, she knew what was up, and she didn't mind drinking alone. Although, when she got really drunk, she missed Finnick's too loud laughter trying to cheer her up.

The years continue to drag on, and Chrissy finds herself in a sort of makeshift family that includes Finnick, Annie and occasionally Chaff, who isn't as upset about Chrissy ditching Haymitch as she thought he'd be. He seems to understand that something else was at play. Tributes sometimes say behind her back that she ought to go live in District 4, since she so obviously prefers their company. She ignores these, along with reporter's questions about her and Finnick's "love life".

4 years after Annie won, Chrissy's watching Titus get crushed by that avalanche and cheering inside because he ate the heart of her male tribute Kassim. The next day, she's cheering herself hoarse because Natalie has won the Games! She and Terrence proudly escort Natalie to her seat for the overview, flashing her reassuring glances that it'll all be over soon, and then she can go home.

When Chrissy gets back to her house in the Victor's Village, she's practically dancing with joy, because there's no more! No more mentoring, no more tributes lives in her hands, no more anxiety over 'What if I had trained them better?'! No more, no more! Of course, she still has to make the trip every year, but what of that? She didn't have to mentor anymore! As far as she's concerned, she'll never ever have to look at that arena again. Or so she thinks. Snow has other plans.

The year Johanna Mason wins, Chrissy just sits there, staring at Terrence, unable to believe her tributes fell to that…that pathetic wimp of a girl! Finnick brings her down with them for a drink the next year.

Johanna starts it off badly. "So, the Ice Queen, huh? Nice title."

Chrissy scowls at Johanna. "Can it, Spikes. I've had a lot of nicknames, and that surely isn't the worst. That's what happens when you come back year after year having failed to save people's kids. Just you wait, you'll get some too."

Johanna tips her glass back, unconcerned. "I'll keep that in mind, _Prissy_."

Chrissy jumps to her feet. "Shut the fuck up," she snarls. "You have no fucking idea what it's like to be a mentor, so shut your goddam mouth!"

"Why don't you make me?" Johanna challenges, tossing her glass aside and straightening up. "Old woman? My life hasn't exactly been a walk in the park either!"

"I try not to make a habit out of beating up little girls," Chrissy says condescendingly.

"I'd like to see you try!" Johanna yells. "You're pathetic. You let your sister go into the Games!"

With that, Chrissy decks Johanna hard enough to slam her into the bar behind her. "Shut. Your. Fucking. Mouth." She articulates each word carefully, her eyes ablaze with hatred. "And don't ever talk about my sister."

Chrissy turns to go back to her drink, when a bottle hits her in the back of the head. Johanna's on her feet, her face twisted up with anger. Chrissy touches her head in disbelief, and her fingers come away bloody. She takes one long step to Johanna and smacks her across the face, leaving a hand-shaped print on the girl's cheek. Johanna lunges at her, causing them both to fall to the floor in an all-out brawl. Peacekeepers have to come and separate them. Chrissy's got a black eye and nail marks down her face. Johanna's sporting a split lip, dozens of bruises and a deep cut on her scalp where Chrissy slammed her head against the base of the bar. That was the end of Johanna drinking with Chrissy and Finnick.


	50. The Quarter Quell

A few years later, Chrissy watches with wonder as Haymitch snags not one, but TWO tributes back from the jaws of death. Personally, she can't stand the girl, but the boy reminds her a bit of Danny. She wanted him to live, and cursed Cato for what he did, along with Sam's idiocy in going for the Cornucopia when Terrence and Natalie specifically told him not to. Watching both tributes from 12 make it longer and longer was bizarre, because almost every year since Haymitch won, the 12 tributes have died on the first day.

As she comes back to her room in the Training Center from Midnight Flows, having left Finnick and Annie alone, she sees Haymitch sitting on a bench outside, with a bottle in his hand. She hesitates a long moment, wanting to say something, anything to fix what had broken between them 23 years ago. In all that time, the ache in her heart never lessened; it was the one wound Snow gave her that never even began to heal. Haymitch looks up and pins her to the spot with that hating gray gaze. "Where's your boyfriend?" he slurs hatefully. "Pretty boy Finnick?"

"Why don't you go pass out in a gutter?" she says stingingly. She scowls at him to shake off her feelings and then sweeps past, making sure he can't see how drunk she is, or the expression on her face.

The next year is the Quarter Quell. She, Terrence and Natalie all gather in Chrissy's house along with some of their friends from town, which are few in number. Snow comes out to read the card and someone growls.

"On the first Quarter Quell, to show that the war and deaths involved was the choice of the Districts, every District voted for the tributes to be sent in. On the second Quarter Quell, as a reminder that for every Capitol citizen who died, two District citizens died, the Districts were required to send twice as many tributes as usual. This year, as a reminder that not even the strongest can overcome the power of the Capitol, the tributes for this year's Games will be reaped from their existing pool of Victors."

Chrissy doesn't even realize she's the one who's screaming for several heartbeats. The TV has cut off in static. Terrence is staring blankly at the screen as if he can't believe what he heard and Natalie has her face in her aging mother's lap, sobbing. Chrissy leaps to her feet. "Out! Out! All of you get out!" she howls, tears stinging her eyes. The townsfolk, frightened by her manic intensity, flee immediately. Terrence takes longer, each step taken as if he were made of stone. Chrissy runs upstairs and then back down and then into the bathroom, trying to escape the fate bound to two of them. She looks herself in the mirror. 37, with dark circles under her eyes, teeth yellowed from alcohol use, bloodshot eyes, her voice raspy from cigarettes. She slams her fists into the mirror, shattering it. "No! It's not fair! No! He can't do this!" She pounds on it again and again ignoring the searing pain in her hands as the glass shards dig into her skin.

She slumps to her knees, weeping in the mess of glass, blood oozing from her hands, dripping onto the floor and her lap. She knows two things: 1. She can't let Natalie go into the arena again. And 2. She really needs to get into better shape.

So with great pains, she begins her morning work outs again, and attempts to quit cold turkey on both the cigarettes and alcohol. This sends her into the corner of her bedroom, rocking in a ball and fighting off things that aren't there. However, when she does at last recover, she works twice as hard to get in shape for the Games. Fortunately, she hadn't let herself go too bad, and she was never one to pig out, so she's able to regain her former athleticism fairly quickly. That's not to say it wasn't a struggle, and more than once she was ready to give up and just die. But she slapped some sense into herself.

The District is silent at the reaping, the Victors watched with hunched body positions and wretched expressions expressions. "Ladies first, shall we?" Trisha warbles. Her eyes do not share the excitement of her tone. "Natalie Fontana!"

Natalie's already pale face turns white as a sheet. Her mother screams and collapses on the ground. She begins to walk forward with wobbly footsteps, but Chrissy shoves her back into the crowd. "I volunteer," she calls tonelessly. "I volunteer as a tribute."

She strides forward before Trisha can respond and takes her place on stage. Trisha opens her mouth as if to say something, then turns back to face the crowd. She reaches into the men's bowl and pulls "Jacob Allgood!" Chrissy groans. Jacob is at least 55 years old, and a heavy smoker. He doesn't stand a chance. Jacob staggers onto the stage and Trisha manages to choke out, "Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor."

Surprisingly, Terrence, Natalie and their families come to say goodbye to her.

Terrence and Natalie sat down on either side of her. "We just wanted to say thank you," Natalie says in a trembling voice, tears clinging to her black eyelashes. "Thank you for bringing us home." Terrence nods in agreement. "I couldn't have done it without your training."

"Hey…you guys take care, okay," Chrissy says, standing up. She pulls Natalie to her feet and moves her over to stand with her family. "You guys are the strongest of the strong, alright? You'll be fine."

Natalie's father claps a hand on Chrissy's shoulder. "It means a lot to us, you taking Natalie's place. Thank you."

"It's my job," Chrissy says calmly. "Besides…she deserves a chance at a better life more than I do. She has a family, something to live for. I couldn't let Snow take that away; not like he did to my sisters and brother." It's been so long since she spoke of them…they still haunt her sleep.

"So it's your job to make sure you all live out your lies to their full, okay? No regrets."

Terrence holds out his hand and they shakes and then he embraces her tightly, another surprise. She had never imagined that Terrence had grown attached to her. "Die well, won't you?" he says roughly.

"Who says I'm out of the Game yet?" she asks wryly. She pats him on the back and leaves to follow the Peacekeepers out to the train. As if she's going to run away. What does she have to run to?


	51. Deja Vu

I just wanted to say...Whoo! Chapter 51! Man...51 chapters of suffering. That's intense. For those of you who ask if Chrissy's going to die...I'm not answering, but it's touching to know you're upset at the idea. On the other hand, more people that I would have liked are anticipating her death -_- Sorry, I'm rambling. It's 2 a.m and I have a cold so...yeah. I'm gonna shut up now and let you read.

* * *

Terrence and Natalie escort Chrissy and Jacob to the Capitol, which is ironic, because they're much younger. They all pick over dinner, no one having much of an appetite, then they go watch the reapings.

Chrissy watches with only little intakes of breath as Finnick and Annie are called, but Mags takes Annie's place, then Chaff, then Haymitch, but the boy, Peeta, takes his place. This she doesn't understand. If Peeta wants to continue living "happily ever after" with his bride, then his path forward seems clear. Let Haymitch go in with her, die, and then Katniss can come back fine. If they both go in, only one of them can come out. Chrissy feels bad that Katniss and Peeta are going to die so soon after supposed safety was reached, but from this moment on, she has only one goal: Bring Finnick home. Bring him back to District 4, and Annie, and the rest of the life he deserves to live.

Feeling grim and heavy-hearted, Chrissy and Jacob head to their respective rooms to lie in wait, pretending to sleep, until the train pulls into the Capitol. Chrissy's bloodshot eyes speak for her lack of sleep as she's whisked away by a prep team to meet a stylist, not Xenia, who dresses her up in one of those warrior bikinis like the one Erika wore. Chrissy hates it with a passion. Jacob's is worse though, he's in some kind of deer costume and it looks so sad and pathetic on a wasted old man Chrissy can barely stop herself from running over and tearing it off.

Waiting for the parade to start, she leans against her chariot. She can see 12 from here, and she watches Finnick playing with Katniss.

"Nice outfit, van Pelt." The voice breaks into her thoughts. She turns to see Chaff standing nearby, with Haymitch behind him, seriously looking like he didn't want to be here, talking to her. "You like?" she asked, striking a pose.

"Mmm," Chaff says. "You still got it, girl."

"Did I tell you I quit smoking, and drinking cold turkey?" Chrissy shifts the conversation.

Haymitch snorts. "What's the point? You're-" He breaks off, but his direction was obvious.

"Going to die?" Chrissy fills in quietly. "Yes, I am. I have no intention of coming home again. But that doesn't matter, because I have nothing to come home to."

They just look at each other for a moment, and for once, Chrissy's gaze is empty of arrogance, wanting only for Haymitch to see how broken she is, how much she bleeds for him every day. But she can see the coldness in his eyes, covering up something else. He turns away and walks back to Peeta, and then head towards the District 12 chariot.

"He'll never forgive me, will he Chaff?" Chrissy whispers.

Chaff lowers his head and moves to stand next to her. "You were one of the very few people Haymitch opened up to. He loved you, you know. A lot. When you left, you broke him more than you know. And I'm not saying you did it for the reasons you said," Chaff adds, throwing up his hands to ward off Chrissy's glare. "But still, the fact remains, you left. And Haymitch was never one to forgive easily. You're too alike, you two. Both too stubborn and arrogant to apologize, though each of you is pining for the other."

"Well it's too late now," Chrissy says bitterly. "It's done. You'd better get to your chariot." She turns her attention to fiddling with a strap on the side of the chariot. Chaff gives her a long look, then goes back to find Haymitch, who is regretfully still in sight.

Finnick appears by her side, chewing on something crunchy. "Hey babe," he says, greeting her with a lip lock kiss. "Sugar?"

She doesn't treat this as an aberration, as Finnick often displays affection on her that would be clearly interpreted as romantic, but they know better. It's also a good way to mess with the heads of the Capitol reporters. She takes a sugar cube and sucks on it thoughtfully. "At least we know one thing," she says. "You'll still be getting all the sponsors." She gives him a crooked ghost of a smile and then hugs him. "Good luck out there, okay? Not that you need it."

"Nah," Finnick says. "I got you to make sure no one touches me." He grins and saunters off to the District 4 chariot.

The chariot ride is really quite melancholy, seeing elderly and sick people paraded around as though they're spry young children. During Snow's speech, Chrissy can't take her eyes off of him, her hot, burning gaze fixed on his face as though her eyes were lasers. The hatred pounds so loud in her ears she doesn't actually hear anything he says. _Kill, kill, kill!_ The voices scream in her mind, and her hand grips the edge of the chariot so tightly her circulation gets cut off.

The chariots continue onto the Training Center where all the tributes stroll off, heading for their rooms. She skips dinner altogether and paces around by the window in the elevator room. "Thinking about jumping, sweetheart?" comes a mocking voice. Chrissy turns to see Haymitch standing behind her, beer bottle in hand.

"Not now. Not ever," she says stoically, turning back to face the window. "When have I ever been one to run from a fight?"

"Never," Haymitch grunts, taking a swig from the bottle. "In fact, you were usually the cause of most of 'em."

Chrissy glances over her shoulder to give Haymitch a long look. She has a sudden flashback to the time Haymitch took her to see the fountain, his first attempt at making peace. How mistrusting she'd been of his intentions! _How the tables have turned,_ she thought bitterly. She turns to face him fully. "I'm not coming back from the arena," she says. "I'll never see District 9 again, I know that. And I don't want to go in with things the way they are between us." She pauses to let that sink in. Haymitch is giving her a queer look. "I want to say…I'm sorry." The words seem to stick in her throat and she has to force them out. "I never wanted to-"

"To hurt me?" Haymitch interrupts roughly. "I daresay you failed in that endeavor. You only ever thought of yourself, Chrissy. You were the same in the arena. You got sponsors because people could see there was NOTHING you wouldn't do to win. When you want something, you'll destroy everyone and everything in your path to get it. And I don't doubt you'd slaughter Katniss and Peeta in a heartbeat in there."

Chrissy makes a massive effort to shove down her anger and the retorts piling up inside her mouth. "I won't. You of all people should know, Haymitch, that I won't kill children again. I won't let them kill Finnick either though. My only goal is to make sure Finnick comes out alive. I take care of mine, Haymitch, you take care of yours." She strides past him and into the District 9 dining hall to get some food. _Well…that went about as well as could be expected._


	52. Brothers in Pain

Just an FYI I have another song in this one. It's 'My Last Breath' by my favorite band, Evanescence. It really helps if you look it up on youtube.

* * *

The next day in the Training Center is even sadder in a way than the parade. Half the tributes, including Jacob, don't even show up. Since everyone already knows her skills, Chrissy doesn't hold back as she works with the Capitol swords and knives. She gives anyone who comes near a look so aggressive they all back off. She and Finnick trade skills; he shows her how to handle spears and tie knots and Chrissy shows Finnick how to wield a spear and throw a knife.

At lunch, she sits with the rest of the tributes and occasionally throws in a joke about the Capitol or one of the other tributes. She notices Katniss and Peeta aren't doing a very good job of fitting in. _They haven't accepted their imminent death_, she thinks, shaking her head. _That boy is toast. Too bad, he seems like a nice kid. _

Finnick and Chrissy spend the Training days soaking up any knowledge that can help them. They even visit the edible plants center. Interviews come around again, and this time they put Chrissy into a really short bronze skirt, showing off one of the few female attributes she has going for her: her long, muscular legs. Her hair is given extensions and done up in some sort of cascading bun on top of her head. She's got lots of glittery gold jewelry and two-inch high-heels to top it all off.

She listens intently to the other tribute's interviews, once she realizes many of them are Capitol-bashing in disguise. When she comes out, the crowd cheers as usual, but she just scowls at them.

"So Chrissy!" Caesar Flickerman begins. "What's it feel like to be going back into the arena?"

"In all honesty Caesar?" Chrissy asks, raising an eyebrow. He nods eagerly, like her words are the most important thing in his world. "It feels like shit. So much for the whole 'Immunity for life' thing. I thought I had paid my dues, faced the worst the world had to throw at me before. Now I'm going back to the place that still manifests itself in my worst nightmares, 20 years later. It really feels like shit." Now she knows she must be careful, because just talking about it is making her see red that the Capitol has the power to throw her back into the arena like this. That they could do it in the first place.

Caesar nods sympathetically. "So, last time in the arena, you said you were fighting to avenge the death of your younger sister, who died in the Games before you. What are you fighting for now?"

"Well, Caesar, if things were just a little different, I'd say I was fighting for nothing. But I have someone I want to come back from that arena too."

"Finnick?" Caesar guesses. "It's long been rumored that you two are having a love affair. Care to comment?"

Chrissy actually laughs at that. "Yeah, I would. First off, Finnick is twenty-four, and I'm thirty-seven. Age-gap much? Secondly, Finnick and I never felt that way about each other." Her eyes take on a distant look, as she faces the fact that she could see Finnick die in front of her tomorrow. "Finnick…he's my best friend," she says, getting choked up. She forces the tears away; there's not a chance she'll give Snow the pleasure of seeing her cry on live television. "In a lot of ways, he's like a son or a brother to me. For years, he's been there when I needed him, and I was there to take care of him after his many affairs." This draws an uneasy laugh from the Capitol. "I won't come back from this arena, Caesar. I know in my heart that beyond a doubt, I'll never see my home again. I only want to make sure that Finnick makes it back to District 4, because he has the rest of his life ahead of him, and he deserves to get to live it."

Caesar pauses for a moment, shifting in his chair. "So…Peeta has made it clear he has the same intentions for Katniss. Any opinion on them?"

Chrissy takes a deep breath. "Sure, Caesar. It sucks. Sucks to be them. I feel for them, I do. But I won't let them get in my way."

Caesar nods with that obnoxious smile plastered on his face once more. "That sure is you, Chrissy! Never let anyone take you down! Now, care to wrap it up with a song?"

Chrissy has prepared for this, and straightens up to begin.

"_Hold on to me love  
You know I can't stay long  
All I wanted to say was, 'I love you and I'm not afraid'  
Can you hear me?  
Can you feel me in your arms?__Holding my last breath  
Safe inside myself  
Are all my thoughts of you  
Sweet raptured light it ends here tonight  
_

Holding my last breath  
Safe inside myself  
Are all my thoughts of you  
Sweet raptured light it ends here tonight

I'll miss the winter  
A world of fragile things  
Look for me in the white forest  
Hiding in a hollow tree  
I know you hear me  
I can taste it in your tears

Closing your eyes to disappear,  
You pray your dreams will leave you here;  
But still you wake and know the truth,  
No one is there...

Say goodnight,  
Don't be afraid,  
Calling me, Calling me as you fade to black.

Holding my last breath  
Safe inside myself  
Are all my thoughts of you?  
Sweet raptured life, it ends here tonight

Holding my last breath  
Safe inside myself  
Are all my thoughts of you  
Sweet raptured light it ends here tonight."

The crowd is still silent when she gets up and walks off stage. She made sure that all the turbulent emotions involved with the arena made it into her voice; the anger, the agony, the blind terror, the uncertainty, the suffering. She runs into Finnick backstage. His sea-green eyes shine with emotion. "Chrissy…Did you really mean that?"

"Of course I did, stupid," she whispers. "Since when do I waste my breath on things I don't mean?"

Finnick puts a hand on her shoulder and looks at the floor, overcome for a moment. When he looks up she can see tears starting to build in his famous eyes. He pulls her into an embrace and they stand like that for a moment, as if they can ward off the danger facing the both of them with just their love. "You did good," he says in a strange voice. "I loved the new song." They pull apart and then go to take their seats and wait for the finale. _  
_


	53. Into the Arena

Alrighty! Here's where I break from cannon. I know both District 9 tributes die in the bloodbath, but as some of you know, I had a vision about how this story will end, and that's not it. So I'm gonna keep her alive a bit longer.

* * *

When Peeta announces Katniss is pregnant, Chrissy exchanges a look with Finnick: _Yeah, right._ But Katniss's transformation makes them both take a second look. Cinna's designs are never pointless; he has a reason behind everything. Making her wear her wedding dress was horribly cruel, but the Mockingjay…that is clearly a sign of rebellion. Then the Victors begin to take hands, and Chrissy can barely suppress a smile because Snow is surely cursing up a storm in his office right now. The interview couldn't have gone worst from his point of view.

She tries to sleep in her room, and can't, of course. She's surprised to find her stomach churning worse than it was on her first Games. Perhaps it's because that time she truly didn't care if she lived or died? But she had much more to live for then; youth, family, love, wealth. What does she have now? Only Finnick, for whom she will lay down her life without a second thought. She considers going to the rooftop, but she imagines many other Victors/tributes are having trouble sleeping tonight, and the last thing she wants is company. So she lies in bed, ready to leap out and kill anything that might threaten until her body is weary with her tense muscles and the sun is peeping through the curtains.

She rises, dresses and goes down to the dining hall. Jacob has fallen asleep in his chair, Trisha is holding her head in her hands and Terrence and Natalie are picking at their breakfast half-heartedly. "So, today's the big day," Chrissy says brusquely, dropping her plate on the table. Natalie just looks at her with wide brown eyes. Terrence nods slowly. There's no more talking as Chrissy stuffs down as much food as she can hold. Then they all head to the roof to catch their hovercrafts. Chrissy turns to board with Terrence, and then remembers she's going on the tribute hovercraft this time. She pauses on the roof, looking over her escort group. "Hey…you guys take care, okay? Say hello to Annie for me, will ya?"

Natalie nods, tearing up. "Of course." Chrissy can tell things are taking a turn for the mushy, so she boards her hovercraft without another word. Jacob's already seated across from her. "Uncertain goodbyes are always the worst," he rasps sagely.

Chrissy stares at him for a moment, then glances out the window for a last look at the roof of the Training Center. "Yeah, they are."

The ride on the hovercraft seems too long and too short all at once. They debark and head to their Launch Rooms. Jacob touches her shoulder, and she turns around. "Good luck," he says. Chrissy almost throws up, because that's the same thing Lee said to her before his untimely death in the bloodbath, and likely as not, Jacob will die there too. For a fraction of a second, she's tempted to try and protect Jacob too, but he's old and probably going to die soon anyway, and she knows he'd rather have a young kid get back out. As she walks into her Launch Room, it hits her why she's so much more anxious about the arena this time. Because she doesn't want to save her own life this time, it's someone else. She has a lot less control over the situation that way, and she knows if Finnick dies in the arena, that'll be it for her. It'll be over. She thinks as she gets dressed that she never realized how close she'd grown to Finnick until she was here, facing losing him. She forces herself to shower and sit on the couch in her blue jumpsuit until it's time for her to stand on her plate. She knows Terrence and Natalie will be watching from the Monitoring Room, so she puts a placid expression on her face as she rises up into…an ocean.

Her eyes become huge green orbs as she spins around, seeing only water all around her. Lifting her gaze from the deadly blue water, she sees that there is indeed a shoreline out there, so it won't be islands like the 60th Games. Finnick and Katniss are already in the water, swimming for an island in the center where the Cornucopia lies. Cashmere reaches it at the same time and chucks a spear in their direction. It catches Jacob in the neck and he falls into the water, spurting blood over Chrissy's face and boots. She jerks back, and the heel of her boot hits the water, causing her to spin and try to even out. She meets Finnick's eyes and waves him off.

Chaff calls out to her. "Come on, sweetheart!"

"I can't swim!" she wails, eyeing the blue liquid mistrustfully. "You go on without me!"

Chaff doesn't need encouragement; he and Seeder hit the water and flounder towards the Cornucopia. It's there that Chrissy sees the strange purple belts are floatation devices. Everything in her being screams for her to stay on her solid little plate, where it's safe and stay away from the uncertainty of the water. But she knows that with the Careers at the Cornucopia, she has only seconds to make a decision or die. She throws herself into the water, paddling desperately for the center island, dodging fire from the other tributes as she goes. Chaff takes out the guy from 5 and tosses his body into the water, so there's one less taking aim at her.

Water fills her mouth and throat, salty and vile, choking her. She grabs at something to pull her up as her lungs scream for air. _Whoever said drowning was a peaceful way to die is an idiot!_ She thought furiously. At last she reaches the island, with older tributes drowning or floundering behind her. She sees with dismay that the Cornucopia is filled up with only weapons. She grabs a sword and a dozen knifes, stowing them in her belt. Back on shore, 4 and 12 are booking towards the forest. She watches them for only a moment, then sees tributes from 8 and 10 pulling themselves onto shore. She's about to turn and go, but the woman from 10 hits her in the leg with a poorly thrown arrow. Chrissy knows they can't live if she's going to succeed in her goal. With two quick swings of her sword, both tributes from 10, still climbing onto the island are dead. She spins around, blood staining her face and outfit and dripping from her sword. The tributes from 8 flee, but Chrissy catches the man in the back with a knife and he falls to the ground, half in the water. She remembers Celia, who has 3 kids, and can't bring herself to hit her in the back like she did her partner. She frees her knife from Woof's back and plunges into the water again, headed for shore.


	54. The Torments Begin

When she finally drags herself into the sandy beach, she's exhausted and waterlogged, but she knows this battle is far from over. She recalls the direction Johanna went in, and reminds herself to go the opposite direction. The forest possessed a kind of damp heat that seemed to sink into your bones and in no time Chrissy was soaked in sweat. She kept pushing her way through the plants. Her first impulse had been to slash through them with her sword, but she realized that would not only dull her sword but leave a trail as plain as day to follow.

Within an hour the heat was driving her into a murderous rampage. _If I ever get my hands on Plutarch Heavensbee's neck…_she thinks angrily. She decides to climb a tree and see what she could about the arena. She mounts a tree and scampers up the branches. Growing up in the Hunting District meant she was mildly accustomed to climbing trees, but now she is a good deal heavier than she'd been as a teenager, working to feed the Capitol. She goes as far as she dares and looks around. As far as she can see, the arena appeared to be a circle. She can see dead bodies on the beach and a few solitary figures battling on the beach and not much else. She shimmies back down the trunk and starts a search for food.

She spots a large rodent crawling over one of the branches and climbs up to grab it, but he springs away. She curses and sits down on the thick branch, waiting for more prey. It's a good while before a rodent dares creep past her to get to its destination, and it's dead in seconds. She cuts the animal up and wonders if it's safe to eat raw. _I guess I'll find out._ She takes a bite of it and for the second time that day, almost vomits. The next few bites are just as bad, but after a while it sort of dulls, so she's able to choke the whole thing down. She finds a tangle of branches that look safe enough and lies down there to sleep. When she wakes, it's to the sound of Finnick's agonized screams.

"Finnick!" she jumps down from the tree, sword at the ready and crashes through the plants, not caring who hears her. She bursts through a bush and she can tell the source of the screams is here, but where? "Finnick!" she shouts, spinning around. "Where are you? Finnick!" At last her eyes spy a bird up in the branches, calling out those horrible screams. "Jabberjay!" she spits hatefully. She knows she can't waste a knife on it, but those sounds will haunt her dreams until she dies, which won't be long at this rate. 8 died in the bloodbath alone. Finnick's scream cuts off, and is replaced by Ferra's. Even though she knows it's not real, she can't help tearing though the foliage to find the wretched jabberjay spouting her sister's howls. After that comes Haymitch's yells, and those are unbearable. "Stop! Stop it!" she screeches, dropping to her knees and covering her ears. She crawls under a bench and kneels there, rocking back and forth, tears streaming down her cheeks, trying to stop the torture from penetrating the depths of her mind.

It seems like eons, like time has ceased to have meaning when the birds finally fall silent. Chrissy sits there for several heartbeats, clearing her mind and eyes before squirming out of the foliage. No one else seems to have been around for that vicious psychological torment. She shakes her head, all turned around now, and takes off in the direction she thinks she saw Finnick and 12 go yesterday. Anything to get away from those damnable birds. She's climbing a tree to get a better look around when she hears voices, and halts, still as stone on her branch.

"Tick tock, tick, tock, tick, tock…"

"Shut up!" She recognizes that acerbic tone; it must be Johanna. She leans forward, peering through the oily leaves to get a better look. What she sees makes her furrow her brows in consternation. Johanna and District 3 are struggling through the plants, soaked in something dark that looks suspiciously like blood. The woman…Chrissy tries to pin a name on her, but the only thing that comes is Volts. _Volts it is then._ Volts is spinning around in little circles as she stumbles along, singing in a strange voice "Tick tock, tick tock" over and over again. Nuts is being pulled by Johanna through the jungle. _What does she want with them?_ Chrissy wonders.

She stays silent as the bizarre procession makes its way through the jungle, slowly and painfully. She contemplates killing one of them, but Johanna's back is protected by the lagging District 3 and Chrissy knows she can't kill Nuts or Volts without attracting Johanna's attention, and that's something she can do without. She knows Finnick and Johanna are friends, so she assumes Johanna is heading in his direction. She sits there, trying to think out what to do, when a silver parachute with a bottle of water drops down in front of her. It's then that she realizes how thirsty she is. When was the last time she had a drink? Before the arena, she's sure. She takes a long drink and decides to wait out here for something to come to her. She doesn't trust Johanna or Katniss, but for now she knows that both girls will take an alliance with Finnick and Peeta to take out the Careers and herself before they break up and kill each other.

She picks out a tree that has a view of the beach so she can keep an eye on that, and then leans back against the trunk and waits for another tree rat. One comes along as Chrissy's legs are starting to fall asleep. She fells it with her knife and cuts it up, dropping the entrails into a bush directly below the tree. She knows leaving evidence that close is risky, but she's counting on the bush to hide it. She chokes down the heinous meal and drifts off.

Sometime later, she opens one eye to see some figures in the distance, one of them crawling. Chrissy wishes more than anything at that moment that she had binoculars. They plunge into the water and sit there, splashing themselves. She thinks they might have gone crazy or something. But when she sees the larger figure heft a trident, she knows she's looking at Finnick and 12. _But where's Mags?_ She thinks. _Surely even Katniss wouldn't kill an old woman so early in the Games?_ She lounges in the tree, watching them for a while, and seeing them fooling around out there, it gives her unexpected warmth inside. They could almost be playing on any old beach, free of any threats by the Capitol, with no death sentence hanging over them.


	55. Didn't See That One Coming

For lack of something to do, she sticks her knife into the tree, and is surprised by a gush of warm water over her hand. She narrows her eyes at the knife and wiggles it around a little. More water. Water! That's where the other tributes must be getting water! She slurps the water of her hands and makes a mental note to find a better way to get water. For now she has the water bottle.

Memories of her first Games begin to besiege her in the quiet hours. Faces of tributes she killed, the parched feeling of having to ration out her water so carefully, the agony of the lizards. As the sun begins to rise, a strange buzzing begins to register in her ears. She looks around suspiciously, not liking the sound of it at all. She strains her eyes in the dark of the jungle to see what's coming, and when she does, she leaps from the tree, abandoning the rest of her tree rat. A massive swarm of bugs, large enough to blanket the beach, is speeding towards her, flying, crawling, their horrible pinchers clicking. She runs as fast as she can, but it's not fast enough. The bugs are closing in. Sometimes the horrors of the arena are restricted to a certain area. With this in mind, Chrissy makes a beeline for the beach. She throws herself out into the sand as the bugs begin to latch onto her. She breaks into a kind of slapping dance, trying to swap them off. Their pincers are like razors, slicing through her skin. When all of them are off of her, she collapses in the sand, fury swelling in her breast that Snow has the right to do this to them. She skirts around the bug area and slinks back into the jungle before she can attract the attention of those on the beach.

She pats her bites dry with a loose scrap of her jumpsuit and captures another tree rat. _It feels like it's getting hotter in here…_She curls up in her tree to sleep, and wakes sometime in the night having fallen out. She moves to sit up and swears. _My wrist! It's broken!_ She tests her theory by trying to move her wrist, and pain lances through her arm. Kicking herself for not securing herself to the tree, she snaps off a few good-sized sticks and uses another scrap of her suit to tie the sticks to her wrist to keep it straight. Deciding it's time to get closer to the main non-Career group, she sets off through the jungle.

But while she was sleeping, they must have been on the move, because she finds neither head nor hair of them, but sees a camping group on the other side of the lake. _Damn! Can't they stay in one place?_ She sticks to the edge of the jungle so she can use the beach to navigate. But at some point, she runs into an invisible plastic wall. And then the screams begin again.

She's howling at the sky now, because she was sure she'd been freed of this suffering. In an attempt to give herself something to concentrate on besides Danny's gurgling cries of agony, she thinks on something Volts said. The woman was a Victor, so she was no fool. She meant something…Chrissy checks the position of the sun. It seems to be in the same place as it was last time…the arena is a circle…the sun…tick tock…"A clock!" she exclaims. "The arena is a clock!"

She bears out the rest of the screams in a fetal position. When it's over at last, she hurries in a counterclockwise direction. She hunts down another tree rat and thinks about what to do. The Careers are no doubt hunting down Katniss and Peeta's little protection posse right now. She continues along in the same direction, determined to be close at hand when the inevitable battle comes.

She's close enough to hear muffled sounds coming from their direction when lightning strikes the tallest tree in the area. Something explodes, and there's a blinding flash of light and wind enough to blow Chrissy's shorn hair back.

"Finnick!" she screams. A hovercraft appears out of nowhere and she sees several bodies lifted out of the arena. She's too confused to scream again, too desperate to figure out a plan. The walls that defined the arena have vanished, leaving it open to the great wide world. The sky has been returned to its normal starry blue. Before she has time to react, another hovercraft appears, and her muscles freeze. She's hauled into the air and the hovercraft moves, collecting others. When she's dragged through the door, she's met by a furious group of Peacekeepers. "Game over, rebel!" one of them snarls. A needle is driven into her arm and she blacks out.


	56. Suffering for the Cause

She sits back in her cell and leans against the wall, watching Johanna and Peeta, waiting for one of them to wake up. Peeta's first, groaning and rubbing his head as he sits up. His blue eyes widen, flick around, examining their surroundings. Then they fall on her, watching him.

"Who are you?" His voice sounds rough and pained.

"I'm Chrissy," she says. "Victor of the fifty-fifth Games."

"Ah." An alarmed look flares in Peeta's gentle gaze. "I watched your tape."

"Do you know why we're here?" she asked, getting right to the point.

Peeta shakes his head. "No idea. I was about to ask you the same question."

Chrissy sighs. "I guess we're in for a wait then. Johanna's in the cell next to yours, in case you can't see her."

Peeta frowns. "Enobaria's in the cell next to yours." Chrissy rolls her eyes.

"Great. I get the nutbag."

This makes Peeta give her the smallest flicker of a smile, which fades quickly. Chrissy furrows her brows, thinking again.

"Why would they takes us?" she mused. "We're Victors…we've done our penance…what do they want with us?"

"Secrets from the rebels," raps Johanna, who's come back to life.

"Rebels?" Chrissy asks, nonplussed.

Johanna nods. "District 9 wasn't part of it."

"Figures."

"I wouldn't trust you with rebel secrets."

"Shut the fuck up Johanna. What we need to do now is figure out how to get out of here, not argue."

"I agree," Peeta chimes in.

That's when the door clangs open. A plump-faced man with a mustache in a Peacekeeper uniform strides in. "So, who's first?" he asks with a leering smile.

"Them!" Enobaria shrieks. "Whatever it is, they did it!"

"Shut up," the man snarls. Enobaria shrinks back in her cell; apparently her District 2 pedigree means nothing here. "We know all of you were involved in the plot to destroy the arena!"

"You're wrong," Chrissy drawls. "We don't know anything about it. The ones who did got away."

A cruel smile splits the man's face.

"Looks like we have a winner." He unlocks Chrissy's cell and handcuffs her. Chrissy sends a look Johanna's way as she's hustled out the door. _What did you do, Johanna? What do you know?_

The man leads her through a steel door and pushes her down on a metal chair. Chrissy's heart is beating so loudly she's sure he can hear it to. Down here, wherever they are, the Capitol can do whatever they want to her. There are no laws down here, nothing to keep her safe. The man undoes her handcuffs and straps her down.

"Look, whatever it is you want to know, I don't know it!" Chrissy says. "I have no clue about any rebel underground, any resistance."

"Well you'd better start thinking hard," the man says. His hard brown eyes show no mercy. "Tell us what you know! Tell us what you know now!"

"I don't know anything," Chrissy says clearly, hoping to get through to him.

"You're a damned rebel! You know something!"

"I don't!" Chrissy shouts back. This goes on for some time before the man sets his jaw and presses a button on the side of the wall. A woman dressed in white comes in, holding a small jar that Chrissy thinks is empty at first. Then she catches a glimpse of a golden-black body buzzing about inside and her insides turn to water.

"I believe you are acquainted with tracker jackers?" the man says.

Chrissy shakes her head mutely. She can feel the bile rise in her throat, but she forces is back down. She will not give these Capitol pets the satisfaction of seeing her afraid.

"Well then, say hello." He waves the woman forward and she presses the rim of the jar against Chrissy's shoulder, pulling down her collar so it touches her bare skin and she shivers. The woman uses tongs to pull away the slim covering and the tracker jacker instantly sinks its lethal weapon into Chrissy's sun-darkened flesh, humming angrily. For a few moments, while she is still consciousness, she's locked in a battle of the eyes with the man who brought her here. Green eyes meet brown and it's impossible to tell which gaze holds more loathing. Then the hallucinations start coming.

It's worse, a thousand, a million times worse than her worst nightmares. Head throbbing, heart pounding, blood racing, every inch of skin alive with agony. Farah beheaded, Cooper hung, Cassie attacked, Melanie swallowed, Yeoman limp and lifeless, Jamir's vacant stare, Lisa shot…Visions of herself, forced into prostitution, visions of Finnick weeping over Annie's dead body, Haymitch's head bowed under the strain of a Peacekeeper's sword…She's not aware of screaming, but Johanna says she screamed for hours after they brought her back to the cell. Every minute brings new horror unfolding before her eyes, worse than the worst morphling trip.

She screams and cries and begs for an end to it all, waking to find her body sore and her face streaked with tears. Johanna is gone, and from the screams echoing around the room next to the cell room, she's getting hers. Chrissy drags herself from her fetal position on the cell floor, moving to lean against the smooth white wall. She was hard pressed to remember a time she'd felt more drained. The screams die down to loud moans and then loud arguing amongst two men take over.

The door flies open and two Peacekeepers haul an unconscious young woman in between them. Her flowing brown hair hangs in a tangled mess around her face as they toss her into the cell on Chrissy's other side. Chrissy feels as though she's been gut-punched. Annie! Why, how? What could Annie possibly give them? When the realization comes to her she feels sick. To lure Finnick to the Capitol; to discourage him from publically aiding the rebel cause. Her hands curl into fists on her lap and she squeezes her eyes shut, feeling such a wave of hate rise up in her it feels like it's choking


	57. Memories

As she tries to block out Johanna's screams, an old memory surfaces. Of all things, an argument she'd had with Haymitch once. It had been one of their worst, and she remembered it as clear as day. She'd come down to his room after training, and he'd been drunk and in a bad way.

"_Haymitch…you've gotta stop drinking so much. It's killing you."_

"_There's an awful lot of that going around, isn't there?" he said cynically, taking another swig._

"_I mean it Haymitch...Is this about Maysilee?"_

"_What the fuck makes you think it's about her?" he demanded, lurching to his feet._

"_Because you call her name out in your sleep constantly, and I see it in your eyes! You look at some of those blonde tributes, and I know you see her. Wonder if things could have been different."_

"_Well aren't you the little psychologist?" _

_Chrissy just stared at Haymitch, not willing to back off. He glared at her and took another drink from the bottle, flopping back down in the chair by the window._

"_I do. I see her every day, all the time, wondering," he whispered. "Always wondering what I could have done…how I could have saved her."_

"_Only one of you could win. She knew that."_

"_That doesn't make it any better!" Haymitch roared, hurling the bottle across the room, where it shattered against a wall._

"_Knock it off Haymitch," Chrissy growled. "You're not the only one who's ever lost someone, you know. You're not the only one who's ever suffered!"_

"_Easy for you to say," he sneered, staggering over to her. "District 9 loves you! The Capitol loves you! You never even had an ally! You don't know what it's like!" _

"_Oh, yeah, I just have to deal with the fact that I slaughtered about half the kids in the arena!" Chrissy snarled, getting in his face. "I looked that girl from 10 in the eyes Haymitch, IN THE EYES, and stabbed her in the gut! You don't think I see her all the time too? You think I don't dream about her too? What about Topaz and Sparkle? The ones I tortured? Or Veronique, whose spine I severed! You only killed when you had to!"_

"_Thanks for putting that in perspective," Haymitch spat in her face. "I never realized what hero I was!"_

_Chrissy slapped him across the face._

"_Why don't you stop wallowing in self-pity and pay attention to the people who are still alive!"_

"_You?" Haymitch said mockingly. "Poor Chrissy isn't getting enough attention?"_

_Chrissy shoved him backwards with the heel of her hands, but he caught her wrists and pulled her to the floor with him._

"_Let go of me," she said in a deadly voice._

"_Why should I?" he whispered back. "Gonna kill me sweetheart? You want your kisses? Here you go." He locked his mouth over hers, holding her in place. Chrissy struggled to get free and sank her teeth into his lip. "Ow! Goddamnit Chrissy!"_

_She got to her feet and spat out his blood onto the carpet. _

"_Grow up Haymitch," she said coldly. "If you're so bothered by people suffering, perhaps you ought to DO something about it." She made for the door, then paused. "And if you ever, EVER, do that to me again…I'll kick you so hard it'll knock your voice up four octaves."_

_She slammed the door shut, brimming with fury._

When she comes out of her reverie, an unconscious Johanna is being dragged back to her cell. She looks awful. Her spikey hair has been shaved off, and she has numerous cuts and bruises blossoming on her body. The Peacekeepers toss her in a cell and then depart, flipping the lights off as they go, leaving the former victors in total darkness.

"Why that one?" Chrissy muses out loud.

"Why that what?" comes a croaky voice. She looks over to see Peeta staring at her through the darkness, bright blue eyes like a beacon.

"That memory," says Chrissy, deciding to talk to Peeta. Why not? The odds of any of them making it back out of here were about a million to 1. "You know those times when a memory just comes to you? I had one of those, and I was wondering why that memory. It doesn't really pertain to this situation at all."

She can hear Peeta struggling to sit up. He leans against the bars that separate him from Johanna.

"What was the memory?" he asks.

Again Chrissy hesitates.

"A fight I had with Haymitch once," she says vaguely.

"You knew Haymitch?" Peeta says. "I knew it."

Because of the pitch black, Peeta can't see Chrissy raise an eyebrow.

"You knew? And how was that?"

"The way he looked at you before the parade," Peeta says casually, turning to look at something inside his cell.

Chrissy snorts.

"You mean like he wanted to rip my throat out?"

"Well…yeah, but also something else," Peeta says evasively.

"What?" Chrissy demands irritably. She hates it when people beat around the bush.

Peeta pauses a long moment and then says, "I'm not really sure."

"How very insightful," Chrissy says sarcastically, turning away from him.

"Wait! I mean, like, I couldn't put a name to it, but it was there…something other than the hate…like he was thinking of something that happened between you and wishing it could have been different," he says at last. Chrissy doesn't reply, so Peeta takes a deep breath and asks, "What was between you two?"

"Nothing," Chrissy says dully. "Nothing at all. We were friends once, and then we weren't. End of story."

"Oh," comes the response. Yet another awkward pause. "That's too bad. You guys are so alike…I thought you'd get along really well."

"Me too kid," Chrissy says too quietly for Peeta to hear. "Me too…"


	58. Tracker Jacker Trip

"Chrissy?" A soft, scared voice breaks through their conversation. There's the sound of shifting. "Chrissy are you there?" the voice whimpers.

"Annie? I'm here," Chrissy exclaims, pressing her face against the bars to see. A pale arm stretches out of the cell next to her. "I'm on your right!" She reaches out and grasps Annie's hand. The girl starts, but then relaxes.

"What do they want with us?" Annie whispers. "What did we do? They took me from home! Why, Chrissy? I want to go home!"

"Shh…" Peeta murmurs. "We'll get out Annie, you'll see."

Chrissy glares at Peeta, but this is lost due to the lack of light. She gives Annie's hand a squeeze.

"Just hang in there Annie, okay? I'm sure you're only here because of Johanna…they'll let you go soon." Terrible fear for Annie, and by extension Finnick spreads through Chrissy like a virus until she feels sick to her stomach. She so desperately wants her words to be true! To be able to offer Annie a reassurance with some merit!

"Okay," Annie replies in a tremulous voice. "I'll try."

"Just think about Finnick, okay?" Chrissy says encouragingly. "He's okay! He's not here, see? He must have gotten away when the arena blew up!" Now she knows Finnick must live, or it will kill Annie to have had false hope. _Great…one more life on my conscience. _

Annie doesn't reply, but her desperate grip on Chrissy's hand loosens.

"Just go to sleep, okay?"

"Okay."

Chrissy lets go of her hand and withdrawals to her cell, curling up in a ball on the smooth white floor, full of fear for a life she couldn't protect. Sometime in the night Johanna starts moaning. Enobaria snaps at her to shut up, but Johanna's caught up in some nightmare world where she's unreachable.

Later that day, a prep team, of all things, comes and escorts Peeta out. He returns several hours later, looking drained, but unharmed. That's when they come back for Chrissy.

Another round with the brown-eyed man, another jab of tracker jacker venom. Not enough to knock her out this time though, not enough to make her useless. Again Chrissy locks eyes with the man as she's injected with concentrated tracker jacker venom. He walks around behind her, entwines his fingers through her curly hair and pulls her head back.

"Still having trouble remembering those rebel secrets, swine?" he growls.

"I don't know any rebel secrets," Chrissy breaths, her eyes as hot as the fires of hell.

"That's too bad," he says mockingly, letting her go. He tugs on the chains that bind her hands and strides back to the front of the room. Despite her show of bravery, Chrissy feels like she's about to be sick, and spots swim before her eyes. Back into her worst nightmares…

* * *

The Peacekeepers haul me out of my cell, and hustle me down the hall…I can't imagine what they're about to do, and I feel sick with fear. But more than that is a sinking feeling that no matter what I do, Katniss will suffer. As we approach a heavy metal door, a man in a dark green Capitol uniform exits and smiles cruelly at me.

"Just as an incentive to tell us what you know," he says. "This is what awaits you if you don't."

He opens the door wide and the Peacekeepers push me in so hard I fall to my knees. The first thing I register is the panting. Heavy, fearful, erratic. I look up to see what has been locked in her with me, and see the victor from 9 sitting on the floor in front of me, still dressed in the tatters of the Games uniform. She's holding her arms close to her chest, shaking, and her pupils obscure most of her forest-colored irises.

Even as I watch, the panting grows worse, and her face breaks into an expression of utter horror. She screams and reaches forward, as if to grab something. Her hand closes on nothingness and she screams again, a marrow-chilling, ear-piercing scream that makes my blood turn to ice. What have they done to her? What could make her so afraid of something that isn't there?

"It's alright," I say soothingly, trying to calm her down. I get to my feet and inch towards her, holding my hand out as I would approach a stray dog.

"No!" she shrieks, scrambling backwards. Her hands are cuffed with metal chains, and she moves awkwardly, like a badly wounded animal. It was truly painful to watch. She covered her ears with her hands and pressed her forehead against the floor, howling. "No, not her! Not Farrah! Please…not her…I'm sorry! I'm sorry Haymitch! I didn't want to, I swear it! Finnick! God, Finnick! No, I tried, I tried so hard…" Tears begin to stream down her cheeks, and she sits up, only to bang her head against the wall. "Let me go!"

Her words break off into nonsensical noises again, and she holds her chained hands out in front of her, warding off some horror only she can see. I reach out a hand to touch her wrist, and she lashes out, sinking her teeth into my flesh. I yell and pull away, but she's pressing herself into the corner of the room, hands up to protect herself from some unknown threat. I wonder what she sees…

* * *

When the poison works it's way at last out of Chrissy's system, she's still in the interrogation room, and her muscles throb with pain. She slumps to the ground, exhausted from the ravings of the venom. She's vaguely aware of voices and the door opening and closing, but she doesn't move. A large Peacekeeper comes over and grabs her by the back of her suit, dragging her back to the cell, and still she is too tired to resist.

It's only when she hears Annie cry out that she snaps to attention, forcing all thoughts of weariness and self-pity from her mind.


	59. Childhood Tales

Hey guys! Sorry it's taken me so long to update; finals and all. So here's another chapter, and another round of thanks to all my loyal followers! You guys rock! I always look forward to reading your comments and hearing what you think about the story, charecters, couples etc...Keep 'em coming!

* * *

She sits bolt upright, sending her head spinning, and strains against the bars to see Peacekeepers cuffing Annie and taking her out of her cell. She fights back, struggling wildly.

"Leave her alone!" Chrissy shouts furiously. "She doesn't know anything either!"

"We'll see about that," one of the Peacekeepers hisses.

"Chrissy!" Annie yelps. Her eyes glaze over as the Peacekeepers push her out into the hall. "Finnick!" she screeches. "Finnick!"

There's a smacking sound and another yelp, followed by a whimper as the door swings shut.

"Hang on Annie!" Chrissy calls after her weakly. Annie's fragile mind would never withstand the tracker jacker shots! She throws a helpless glance over at Peeta, and sees a deeply troubled look in his eyes. They've nothing to do but sit in their cells and wait for Annie's return. Or what was left of her anyway. Annie's howls reach them through the walls, a sure sign that things are not going well. Sometime during it all, Johanna comes back to consciousness and sits up with great effort. She jerks her head towards the door.

"Who've they got now?" she asks gruffly.

"Annie," Chrissy answers, eyes fixated on the door.

"Annie Cresta?" Johanna repeats in disbelief. "What in the hell could they want with her?"

"I don't know," Chrissy replies grimly.

They continue to sit in mute silence, listening only to Annie's shrieks of pain. Enobaria hasn't spoken since the first night, and continues to show no desire to. After 15 agonizing minutes, Chrissy can't take it anymore. She grabs the bars of her cell and rattled them.

"Leave her alone! She's just a girl! She doesn't know anything!" she bellows. "This is just cruel!"

"It's pointless you know," Johanna says.

"Shut up!" Chrissy snarls. "You can't honestly tell me you condone this?"

"Of course I don't!" Johanna says, outraged. "But you yelling about it isn't going to change anything!"

Chrissy slumped against the bars.

"I know…but I just have to get Annie back to Finnick, Johanna. I HAVE to." She cast a despairing look at the door, willing Annie to come back.

"Good luck with that," Johanna mutters, but Chrissy ignores her.

"I wonder what they're going to do to us," Peeta muses out loud after another few minutes spent in blessed silence. "I mean, once they find out we don't know anything."

"Probably shoot us on live TV, if they're feeling merciful," Johanna says darkly.

"But we're victors!" Enobaria protests, speaking up at last.

Chrissy and Johanna laugh cynically.

"You think that matters, sweetheart?" Chrissy asks. "We're just a tool for them now. We always have been. You think being from 2 makes you different? Well look around. At the end of the day, you're still just a Capitol slave."

Enobaria makes an angry sound in her throat and falls silent.

When they at last toss Annie back in her cell, she's still screaming.

"Annie!" Chrissy cries over her howls. "Annie, it's okay!"

"Shut up!" Enobaria snaps.

"Shut your face, bitch!" Chrissy shrieks. "You've never been in there! You have no idea! No idea you pampered Capitol lapdog!"

"Get of your high horse, prissy! Just because you had to scrounge for scraps out in the backwoods of 9 doesn't make you some kind of martyr," Enobaria retorts.

Chrissy's breathing becomes short and labored as hatred for the Capitol, it's tortures, the Games and everything Panem stands for focuses on Enobaria and her heartless, thoughtless comments.

"If I get my hands on you," Chrissy whispers in a deadly tone. "I swear, I'll pull a leaf from your book and rip your larynx out with my teeth."

Whatever else she might have said is interrupted by the appearance of more Capitol attendants. Enobaria isn't laughing anymore, because this time they take her and Peeta too. Annie's still screaming, albeit erratically, and one of the guards kicks her cell on the way out.

"Will you shut that bloody racket off!"

Chrissy spits at his heel as his disappears through the door. She lies down on her side and stretches her arm towards Annie's cell.

"Annie, calm down, it's alright," Chrissy lies.

Annie's hand fumbles around and latches on to Chrissy's. It's cold, clammy and shaking. Her grip is like a vice, as though her hold on Chrissy is the only thing keeping her in this world. She whimpers and stifles cries in the front of her shirt. Chrissy's truly afraid that if Annie slips away from her this night, she'll be lost forever. It's Peeta who begins to talk to her. He starts telling this inane story about frosting a cake with his brother. It occurs to Chrissy that their talking could calm Annie down, keep her with them. So when Peeta finishes, she starts up a story about a time when she'd brought down a wild pig. When that one's done, she tells Annie about the time she played kickball with Cooper and Lisa and lost. She tells Annie every asinine story from her childhood she can remember. She even breaks into stories about things she did with Haymitch and Finnick.

No one else speaks as Chrissy rambles on with things she's never spoken out loud. She never realized all the things that she'd unconsciously highlighted in her mind from her years in District 9's non-victor populace. It seems so long ago now and yet like it was yesterday. Was it really more than 20 years ago that her siblings were vaporized? Annie's breathing slows, becomes less erratic, and she presses her cheek against Chrissy's hand, hanging on to every word. And then at last Chrissy falls silent, and it's clear from Annie's soft breathing that she's fallen asleep still clinging to Chrissy's hand.


	60. Jailbreak

Hey guys! Sorry for the length between updates! I've been really busy and distracted with other stories lately! But here's another one, and if you're sick of hearing about Chrissy and the others being in prison, I think you'll like it ;)

* * *

Chrissy shifts and moves to free herself from Annie's grasp, but the moment her skin brushes the young woman's, Annie's grip tightens, as though even in her sleep she feels a terror at being left alone. Sighing, Chrissy lies back down and prepares for another uncomfortable night.

The next morning, she wakes sore as a tooth and stiff too. One of the idiot guards was grinding her hand into the hard floor with a heavy boot. She shrieked and he grinned maliciously.

"Rise n' shine, scum. Time for some new fun!" He unlocks her cell and grabs her forearm, hauling her to her feet. Another guard clamps handcuffs on her before she can blink and they hustle her down the hallway, into the torture room. It's empty today, but for a large black post with a little ring, to which they fasten her handcuffs. They tear off the upper half of her uniform, leaving it to hang in tatters around her waist. She can't see anymore, because she's facing the post, but she has a good idea of what's coming. The stinging, searing lash across her back affirmed it.

"Tell us where the rebel spies are!" the guard shouted.

Chrissy gave her usual response of late, which was none. Another fire brand erupted on her flesh.

"Who is feeding them information?"

Another whiplash. Pain makes spots swim across her vision.

"Where is the filth?"

"Standing behind me with a whip," Chrissy rasps.

The guard snaps and goes ballistic, beating the hell out of her with the whip, stripping the flesh from bone, shredding her skin to flayed rags. She grits her teeth, squeezing her eyes shut and tries her hardest to imagine herself somewhere, anywhere, else. But she still passes out after an indeterminate amount of time. She wakes up in a pool of blood on the floor of her cell, with an anxious Peeta watching her from across the way. She tries to use the remnants of her uniform to cover the worst of the lashes, but it's not terribly absorbent. Her back feels like it's on fire and ever movement is agony.

"God I hate the Capitol," she breaths.

This actually earns a rough laugh from Johanna. "Who doesn't?"

Things continue on in this vein for who knows how long. There is no real passage of time down in the Capitol cells. They still don't even know if they're above or below ground yet. Each of them gets their turn for torturing, except Annie, who's deemed useless, thankfully. Instead of feeding them, the guards attach tubes that feed bags of nutrients directly into their bloodstream into their arms. Reality begins to fade more and more and even when they close their eyes they can hear each other's screams echoing around the compound. Each of them secretly begins to wish for death and an end to this torment. But nothing comes. They all retreat more and more into themselves, not even speaking to each other, and it occurs to Annie that maybe they've even forgotten how. It might have been that long. Each of them is in their own state of disrepair. So on the day that they hear screams and shouts coming from what's known to them as The Hallway of Doom, none of them asks questions. Enobaria was taken out for her session earlier, and naturally they assume she's causing trouble. When a group of masked people in strange uniforms bursts into the room, Annie cries out in surprise and Chrissy struggles to her feet.

"Who the bloody hell are you?" she demands.

"We're here to free you!" one of them announces. He nods to a dark-haired boy about Peeta's age, who punches a code into Annie's cell pad and the door springs open. She remains cowering inside as the boy unlocks Chrissy's, Johanna's and Peeta's cells in turn.

"Let's go!" one of the jailbreakers shouts. They all begin to head out the door. Chrissy grabs Annie's wrist and pulls the girl to her feet, hustling her along with the rest of the crowd. It turns out they were below ground, but not too far. The rebels, because they must be the rebels, lead them up a winding staircase which is killer on the prisoners. They move at a painfully slow rate, and several of the rebels mutter that they'd rather just carry them and be done with it. In the end, that might have been safer. Johanna, attempting to run up after the rebels, slips and falls down, cracking her head on one of the concrete steps. She's loaded onto a stretcher and they keep going.

As they emerge into the sunlight, the prisoners flinch and cover their eyes, unused to such light after so long underground. Capitol guards shout and fire at them. The rebels keep running towards some grounded hovercraft, but Annie drops to her knees, covering her ears and screaming. Chrissy halts from where she runs beside Peeta and turns to see Annie stop.

"Goddammit," she snarls, running back, stumbling on her weak legs. She once more attempts to haul Annie to her feet, but the poor girl is having none of it. She jerks away from Chrissy and tries to cover her ears again. Rage and adrenaline give Chrissy strength. She scoops Annie's skinny form up, she can't weigh more than a meager 90 pounds, and slings her over her shoulder. Stars explode in front of her eyes at the strain, but she forces herself to hold on. Annie screams in protest, but Chrissy starts moving towards the hovercraft. Though when Annie begins to pound on her enflamed back, that's too much. She drops the District 4 girl onto the ground and drags her along by her wrist. Annie trips after her and Chrissy shoves her up into the hovercraft before climbing on herself. But her foray after Annie has greatly weakened her, and the boy who unlocked her cell grabs her forearms and pulls her up into the craft.

They take off, and Annie settles in a back corner, knees to her chest, rocking back and forth. Black spots swim across Chrissy's vision and she sways slightly. She crawls over to a wall and leans against it. Rebels are shouting orders and scurrying about like ants. A strange lightness, a sort of fog seems to have penetrated Chrissy's consciousness, and everything she's watching seems like it's happening to someone else. Like it's just another tracker jacker induced dream. Only if it were, they wouldn't be getting away.

"Where are we going?" she asks vaguely of a nearby rebel.

"District 13," the woman announces promptly.

"Right," Chrissy mutters. "Underground torture chambers, rebel breakout, District 13…maybe I AM in a tracker jacker coma."

If the woman heard, she ignores Chrissy's ravings, probably dismissing them as just that: ravings from a depraved, crazy victor. Maybe she's right. Chrissy isn't really sure what's real and what isn't these days.


	61. Recovery and Old Rivalries

Sorry it's taken me so long to update, I had some real writer's block there. So, for those of you who are eagerly anticipating Chrissy and Haymitch's reunion: Here you go! Just remember the two people you're asking to reunite after nearly 23 years...BTW, the song (yes, another one!) is 'At Your Side', but an epic Irish pop band known as the Corrs. I'd never take credit away from them. Feel free to check 'em out on Youtube.

* * *

As soon as they land in the very real District 13, the doctors are hustling them into the hospital. It's underground, which instantly sets Chrissy on edge, because escape from demented rebels in an underground hospital is much harder than escape from demented rebels in a regular, ground level hospital. She's pushed past a lot of staring people, and catches a glimpse of the Mockingjay as she's shoved down onto a hospital bed. But there's only one pair of gray eyes that lock on hers with such a burning expression of loathing that it feels like someone just knocked the wind out of her. And then it's gone, and the doctors are poking needles and pumping chemicals into her body. Everything goes fuzzy, and then black. Johanna has to be carried in on a stretcher because she's passed out again.

When she wakes up, she feels stiff and sore, and she can tell her whole back is bandaged up. After much effort, she manages to get into a sitting position, and scans the area. It's a relatively simple facility, rectangular, with a large amount of occupied beds. Looking across them, she sees Annie and Finnick squeezed into one together, looking so peaceful it makes her heart throb in a painful way. _Mission accomplished. _

She smiles weakly, and lays back down, warmth spreading through her body in a way it hadn't for years. She'd almost forgotten what it felt like to feel it. Love.

She spends several uneventful weeks in the hospital, bored out of her mind. She begs the doctors to let her train, and at last they reluctantly allow it. She's thrilled, until she realized what a terrible shot she is. She keeps working at it, but its slow going. The doctors insist that she sleeps in the hospital and they run regular tests on her. Because of the extensive damage done by the beatings, they had to give her artificial skin grafts, which have an unfortunate tendency to rip if she moves too much too soon. So she becomes very familiar with the ceiling above her hospital bed while she waits to heal.

Annie sometimes visits, but never stays for very long, and early in her stay the doctors deem her healthy and she's assigned a compartment. When the doctors try to keep her from Finnick's wedding, Chrissy uses her skills in reasoning to calmly explain why she deserves to go.

"I am NOT unstable! I didn't go through bloody hell so you could tell me I can't go to Finnick and Annie's wedding!"

Though her argument was not augmented by her tone of voice, they let her go. Later on, as she makes her way down early to help with the decorations, she finds it was in part because Finnick wants her to sing.

For some reason, this rubs her the wrong way. She's tired of singing for other people. She's tired of singing, period. But it's Finnick asking, so she submits without so much as a murmur.

She ends up sitting next to some lady who talks incessantly until Chrissy glares at her and threatens to cut her throat with a butter knife. Annie looks so beautiful coming up the aisle; she can hardly believe it's the same girl who was lying helpless in a cell next to her a few weeks ago. Her own outfit consists of government-issued clothing and freshly scrubbed hair. At least she smells vaguely pleasant, which is more than she's had in a long time. Mostly, she looks really tired. But her face still splits into a little smile to see Annie and Finnick finally kiss at the altar. She cheers along with everyone else, and feels she has more reason than anyone else here to be happy for them.

And indeed, happiness swells inside her. It stretches the scar tissue on her heart, making it ache, but it's a good ache. If she can't have lifetime happiness, these two would be the next ones she'd choose to have it. Tenderness for the young couple startles her, because it's something she hasn't felt in decades.

But when she stands up on stage, looking out at the faces of the District 12 and 13 people, staring, waiting, something in her rebels. Then her eyes drift to Finnick's smile and Annie's lovely face and she feels ashamed that she even thought they were trying to manipulate her. She chooses a song that was written for her. She always hated it, but she thinks Annie will like it, and today isn't about her.

"_When the daylight's gone and you're on your own  
And you need a friend just to be around  
I will comfort you, I will take your hand  
And I'll pull you through, I will understand_

And you know that

I'll be at your side, there's no need to worry  
Together we'll survive through the haste and hurry  
I'll be at your side  
If you feel like you're alone, and you've nowhere to turn  
I'll be at your side

If life's standing still and your soul's confused  
And you cannot find what road to choose  
If you make mistakes (make mistakes)  
You can't let me down (let me down)  
I will still believe (still believe)  
I will turn around

And you know that

I'll be at your side, there's no need to worry  
Together we'll survive through the haste and hurry  
I'll be at your side  
If you feel like you're alone, and you've nowhere to turn  
I'll be at your side

I'll be at your side  
I'll be at your side  
You know that

I'll be at your side, there's no need to worry  
Together we'll survive through the haste and hurry  
I'll be at your side  
If you feel like you're alone, you've got somewhere to go,  
'Cos I'm right there  
I'll be at your side, I'll be right there for you  
(Together we'll survive) through the haste and hurry  
I'll be at your side  
If you feel like you're alone, you've got somewhere to go,  
'Cos I'm at your side

I'll be right there for you  
I'll be right there for you, yeah  
I'm right at your side."

The crowd cheered, and then the District 12 people started up some kind of dance. Chrissy kept the songs upbeat so that they had a nice beat to dance to. It was kind of funny, watching all these hardened soldiers follow the Mockingjay into some kind of jig. The more she thought about it, the funnier it seemed until she was stifle laughter and trying to sing at the same time. She got some odd looks, but most people seemed focused on the music.

It was late when she finally bailed off stage because almost everyone was gone. The only ones left were too drunk to notice that she'd stopped singing. The Mockingjay had left a while ago with a pain in her ribs. Only the fiddler was still going, and he was a few drinks in. She was making for the door when an iron grip closed around her wrist.

Years of being fighting made her panic and turn to clobber her assailants, when she recognized Haymitch. He didn't say anything, just pulled her onto the dance floor and started to turn her in a circle, but it was clear he wasn't here just to dance with her.

"Finnick told me a most interesting story before the Quarter Quell," he said evenly.

"Is that so?" Chrissy raised an eyebrow.

"Yes. Something about Snow, prostitution and you," he said in the same toneless voice, edged with disbelief.

"You don't sound very concerned," Chrissy said icily.

"He was fairly drunk at the time. Is it true?" he asked, nearly avoiding stepping on her foot.

"What do you think? Why would he make up a story like that?" she retorted.

"Beats me."

"Use your head," she snapped. "And by the way, I didn't appreciate being kidnapped onto the dance floor. I'm tired."

"I wanted to talk to you." Haymitch was getting that stubborn light in his eyes.

"Then maybe you should have visited me when I was in intensive care," she said, pulling away. How could he think she'd appreciate this pathetic attempt to…what? Make peace? It wasn't working.

He held onto her arm.

"Just answer the question!"

"I shouldn't have to," she snarled. "You should be able to figure it out on your own!" She jerked free from his grip and strode out of the room, burning with anger.


	62. Breakdown

_That ass! He thinks he can try to make up like that? That was pathetic! _Chrissy fumed all the way back to her compartment, and this continued on into her shower and _Reflection. _She tossed and turned for several hours, running their conversation through her head, and by morning she was utterly convinced that Haymitch was lying through his teeth, trying to test her out. She didn't even know what she wanted as far as they were concerned anymore. What she really wanted, was to be left in peace. For just the whole world to leave her the fuck alone. For them to all stop screwing her life up and making her hate the whole damn thing. Life. What kind of life did she live? It wasn't a life at all! It was a tortured existence lengthened and drawn out so her suffering could be the maximum it could be!

Suddenly she couldn't bear to be inside for another minute. She got out of bed, still wearing her hospital gown, and started running. She ran through the hallways, peeling around corners, not caring if she looked insane. Her bare feet slapped loudly against the concrete and she realized this was a really stupid idea. She couldn't get outside, she was underground. She grabbed a wall, beginning to pant like a trapped bird. She couldn't do this, she had to get out now, or she'd suffocate!

"Chrissy?" A concerned voice reached her ears. She looked up with wild, dilated eyes and saw Finnick.

"I can't do this!" she gasped. "I feel so trapped! I'll die down here, Finnick, I'm going to die down here!"

Finnick hesitated a moment, and then stepped c loser and gathered her up in his arms. He stroked the back of her head, smoothing down her unkempt curls.

"You'll be fine," he murmured.

Chrissy froze as Finnick grabbed her, and for half a moment, she had to stop herself from hitting him and pushing him away. It had been so long since someone touched her like this…Suddenly, her eyes burned. A lump grew in her throat, and she leaned into Finnick's embrace, resting her cheek against his strong shoulder and letting him stroke her hair. They stood like that for a long time; she didn't know how long; until her heartbeat slowed down and she didn't feel like screaming anymore.

"Thanks," she managed.

"You brought Annie back to me," Finnick said simply, pulling back to look into her eyes. "I can never repay you for that. And I'm sorry I didn't get to thank you for it earlier."

"I couldn't have done it without the rebels," Chrissy muttered, looking down.

"You kept her going. She told me," Finnick responded. "You talked to her. Sometimes that's all she needs. I was so scared…when she was in prison…that something would happen…" And then tears were sparkling in Finnick's sea-green eyes and spilling over onto his tanned cheeks. Chrissy awkwardly put a hand on his shoulder. He wiped his tears away and clapped her on the back. "We'd better get you back to the hospital, before they track you down," he joked in a trembling voice.

Chrissy nodded, and they walked back to the hospital. Chrissy halted in the doorway.

"Finnick…did you tell Haymitch about what happened? With me and Snow and all?" she asked hesitantly. Finnick stopped too and looked back at her.

"Yeah…I did. Right before we went back into the arena. Why?"

Her stomach churned. So Haymitch hadn't been lying about that…_That doesn't change the fact that he was an ass about it!_ She shook her head.

"Nothing."

Finnick kept his eyes on her for a moment longer, contemplating something, then turned back and walked down the hall.

"Finnick?" she called on impulse, as he walked away.

"Yes?"

"I'm not crazy. I don't think," she blurted out.

Finnick gave an embittered laugh.

"I think all victors are a little crazy." And then he disappeared around a corner.

The next morning, Chrissy finally got her own compartment, which was ironic, considering her breakdown last night. But she works harder at training, and finally gets bumped up to her own age group. Sometimes she sees Johanna Mason and the Mockingjay, Katniss Everdeen, training on another field. The propos are released, and at last the plan for the invasion of the Capitol goes forward. The so-called "Star Squad" is sent out. Chrissy objects to this, as it seems like a waste of both time and manpower. Plutarch, of course, ignores her, despite the fact that she's a "victor".

Instead of getting to go to the Capitol, she gets sent to more training in the Block. For this, she is infuriated. She storms into the control room and demands to know why she's been left behind.

"We already have the Star Squad for propos," Coin says calmly, unfazed by the raging victor in front of her. "And we're not sending more soldiers in until later.

"And where will I be then?" Chrissy asks angrily. "If your answer isn't 'In the Capitol', then you're going to have one pissed off victor on your hands."

Coin looks over at her officers and then turns back to Chrissy. "You can go in for the final assault."

Chrissy sets her jaw and glares fiercely at Coin, but seeing that that's the best she's going to get, she turns on her heel and strides out to go take out her anger on a practice target, which is blown to smithereens with a machine gun before the end of the day. Later that day, she plunks her tray down in the cafeteria and is eating and staring off into space, when she becomes aware of someone watching her. She looks over to her right and sees a little girl sitting there, staring up at her with wide brown eyes.

"I like your hair," she says in a bright, chirpy voice.

Chrissy just stares blankly at her, and runs a hand through her short, curly hair. "Uh…thanks?"

The girl smiles broadly. "I wish my hair was curly! Maybe I could get it done up like Octavia's!" She points to a pea-green Capitolite at another table.

Again Chrissy just stares, wondering why this small child has decided to talk to HER of all people. How, in the name of all that is sane, did she give off the aura that she wanted company, let alone that of a child?

"Posy! Get over here and leave her alone!" called a voice. Chrissy turns around and sees a young man who'd spent a lot of time with the Mockingjay…what was his name? Something Hawthorne. "I'm sorry," he grunts. "Is she bothering you?"

The girl, Posy, sticks her lip out in a pout and casts a glance over at Chrissy, who shakes her head wordlessly. A woman comes up behind Hawthorne.

"You found her! I just turned around and she was-" the woman stops midsentence, and Chrissy's heart sinks. The woman is old enough to remember the 55th Games. No doubt she remembers Chrissy as the sicko who slaughtered half the kids in the arena.

"You'd better tell her not to talk to strangers," Chrissy says, looking at Posy. "You never know what they're up to." Posy looks so innocent and young, Chrissy almost smiles at her. But it's as if she's forgotten how, and anyway it takes too much time for her to remember because Hawthorne and his mother have already taken Posy away by the time she remembers how to work the muscles there. 


	63. Into the Battlefield

So, you guys can see that we're entering the last third of Chrissy's story. I want to really give a hand out there to all you guys who've been with me since the beginning, and all you newcomers. Your comments are what motivate me to keep going, and I really enjoy hearing your thoughts and ideas about the story. Keep reading, so you can see how things begin to wrap up!

* * *

Chrissy's been invited to a strategy meeting as Katniss is out, and she's a victor, and she couldn't be more irritated. Sitting in a dark room listening to Plutarch and Coin ramble on while they point at holographic maps with laser pointers is definitely NOT on her list of top ten ways to spend an afternoon. But things got interesting when they got an emergency broadcast from the Star Squad. Apparently, they'd actually run into some trouble.

"We've got to get them out of there!" Plutarch cried. Too late. The video showed a massive black wave cresting over the street and blocking the view of the camera. When it finally cleared, the Star Squad was gone.

"Oh, no!" Fulvia cried. The whole table looked stricken. Almost against her will, Chrissy glanced over at Haymitch, who was, to her surprise, looking back. They exchanged a look. She knew Haymitch was thinking the same thing she was: There's no way in hell Katniss and the Star Squad got taken out by that thing. They're out there, somewhere.

It was somewhat comforting, and also strange, to be on the same wavelength as Haymitch again, even if it was just for a moment.

That same day, Coin made a whole sappy speech about Katniss giving her life for the cause she believed in. It was a fairly well-written speech, but it was stiff and you could tell if you were street smart that Coin was glad Katniss was out of the picture. However, she rallied the troops and they, along with Chrissy, were shipped off to the Capitol. As she was assigned her gun and hovercraft, Chrissy spotted Haymitch across the hangar. Feeling resigned, she walks over and Haymitch puts away the hovercraft assignments.

"So this is it then," she says bluntly.

"Yeah."

"Aren't you going to say goodbye?" she asks, not sounding as if she cares in the least.

"Do you want me to?" he replies.

"I don't really care. But it seems like you should. I brought your mouthpiece back for you, didn't I?" Her voice is still expressionless.

"Broken, I might add," Haymitch said.

Chrissy gives Haymitch a fed-up, tired look. She's so tired of sparring with him. She realizes their relationship was always this way, even when they were friendly. Their most intimate moments always sprung from fights.

"Do what you want," she says quietly. "It makes no difference to me; I highly doubt I'll be coming back. Just think about what you're doing, won't you?" She turned on her heel and started off, but Haymitch called after her, reluctantly.

"Hey Chrissy…good luck."

She hesitates and cast a glance back at him. She gives him a nod, and then boards her hovercraft.

As soon as they land, there's rebels running around everywhere, shouting orders. The sound of gunfire fills the air. Loud booms punctuate the pepper of the machine guns. Chrissy's squad, Squad 246, is assigned the front lines. _Just my luck. _She mounts her machine gun and with difficulty follows her leader into battle.

From day one, Coin knew Chrissy's biggest weakness was following orders. She's spent her entire life calling her own shots, and she loathes having someone else do it for her. But she sucked it up and bit her tongue to bleeding to get the chance to go in and make Snow and his precious citizens pay for what they've done. Now's the time.

Squad 246 crouches behind barricades made of the shattered remains of nearby buildings as the Capitol troops, the Peacekeepers, storm up the street. General Star waves his hand forward.

"Fire at will!"

Chrissy raises her machine gun and fires, gratified with red erupting across the white chests of the Peacekeepers. Several heartbeats pass and then the reeling Peacekeepers cock their guns and begin to fire back, forcing the rebels to duck behind their barricades. This cycle is repeated several times before the Peacekeepers receive a supply of hand grenades. One comes flying over Chrissy's barricade and before she even has a chance to react, Melissa Hartness , a young woman from Chrissy's squad throws herself over it, saving the lives of everyone else in the barricade. Chrissy forces herself to come to her senses, and tear her eyes away from the remains of Melissa's body.

"Forward!" she shouts. They have to get out of range of the grenades, and that includes close-range combat. The battalion hesitates a moment, but then vault themselves over the barricade after Chrissy. Machine guns at the ready, bullets flying, blood spraying over the ground, the clash of armor. Rebel hovercraft pass low over the battle, firing at the Peacekeepers. They begin to fall back.

One Peacekeeper lands a grenade inside the hovercraft and it explodes, sending the hovercraft careening into a nearby building in a cloud of smoke and fire. Rebel troops throw themselves from the flaming hovercraft, landing and joining the fight. Eventually what's left of the Peacekeeper squadron turn and flee to a barricade further back, giving their closest one over to the rebels. Some rebels cheer, but most are grimly focused on their next target.

For Chrissy, it's bringing back too many memories of the Games, which she is struggling to remove from her mind. She can't lose it here, can't have a flashback here. A snappy, angry voice brings her back to Earth.

"Soldier van Pelt!"

Shit. General Star.

Chrissy turns with a nonchalant look on her face. "Yes General?"

General Star is furious, and rightly so. "I don't recall giving an order to move forward, Soldier van Pelt. Do you?"

Chrissy bites back a smart reply, which she knows will only get her in trouble. "No…sir."

"Then why did you?"

"It seemed like the right thing to do. We needed to get out of grenade range, and at the same time we needed to drive back the Peacekeepers."

General Star takes a step closer to her, his nostrils flaring, eyes ablaze. "In the future, Soldier van Pelt, you will do well to remember that I give the orders here. And you follow them. Otherwise, you may find yourself back in District 13 before you can say 'mutiny'."

Chrissy meets Star's gaze, but eventually she says, "Yes sir."

The General nods and dismisses her to go and re-load her gun for their next assault.


	64. More Games to Play

The battles go this way for over a week, pushing deeper and deeper into the Capitol. The rebels become supercharged with the idea that they could actually win. But then the Capitol showed up with a new kind of sound bomb. It was extraordinarily destructive, rupturing the soldiers from the inside with sonic waves. One of these is launched at Squad 246's current base. While the soldiers are not killed, the building they take cover in collapses, injuring many and killing 3. Chrissy cracks three ribs, a leg and her wrist, and is shipped back to 13, cursing violently the whole way.

Of course they drug her before they plaster her up in casts and hook IVs into her arm. She glares at them the whole time, hating them for taking her off the battlefield. It's around that time that the rebel forces break into the stronghold of the Capitol, and Coin finds out that the Mockingjay is alive. However, most of Squad 451, the Star Squad, is dead.

And strangely enough, it's not Annie who has a meltdown over Finnick's death. The news comes to her while she's visiting Chrissy in the hospital, and she just plops down on the end of a bed, looking stunned, like she can't really believe it. The tortured, ragged scream comes from someone else.

Everyone turns with shock to see Chrissy screaming and clawing at her face. She sinks to her knees with heart-wrenching sobs tearing themselves from her mouth. Chrissy, who never cries; not in public, not in company, and as far as anyone suspected, not in private. The Capitol has finally broken her. She collapses on the ground, tears gushing down her cheeks. No one stops to help her; they're too busy tending to the wounded. She curls into a ball on the linoleum floor and the doctors just step over her. She stays that way until everyone has left and the influx of injured are lying groaning in their beds. She stands on shaky legs, her cast awkwardly off to one side and hobbles over to the counter. The only one watching her was the security camera, and behind it, Haymitch on guard duty.

Haymitch was sitting in security, in a foul mood because somehow he'd ended up with this blasted job. Monitoring the rebels like one of them was going to make break for it. Seeing movement, he shifted the hospital cam closer and saw Chrissy getting up. _Idiot…what does she think she's doing?_ She stumbled and her face contorted in pain as she struggled towards wherever she was going. But because it was Chrissy, and she was stupidly stubborn, Haymitch wasn't surprised when she kept moving.

He recalled what Finnick had told him before the Quell. Sometime after Chrissy had gone back to her room, Finnick had come to level twelve and paid Haymitch a little visit. Haymitch had never seen Finnick angry before, but his eyes smoldered as he told Haymitch exactly what he thought of the way he'd been treating Chrissy all these years.

Of course Haymitch had gotten pissed, and started to fire back, but Finnick had held up his hands and then told him Chrissy's tale about Snow and the prostitute threat. Then, just like that, he left. And he hadn't spoken of it since. He'd been drunk at the time, which had reduced his credibility, but still…why come to tell if it wasn't true? At the same time, if it was, why hadn't Haymitch's stylist warned HIM instead of Chrissy? It didn't make any sense

He watches her hand curl around a scalpel and hold the blade against her wrist. Her lips tremble, and Haymitch's eyes widen with horror. He increases the volume to hear her whisper "-take it all. I have _nothing._" A thin red line appears on her tan flesh. Haymitch's heart hammers in his chest. Oh, cruel world! Was he really to watch his former lover slash her wrists on a camera, knowing he would arrive only in time to catch her body as it fell? She closes her eyes, and he can see her chest rise as she takes a deep breath. Then she lets it out and her lips form a single word. _Annie._ Haymitch releases the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

Chrissy growls, furious. Again she is denied the option of killing herself. She has to take care of Annie; make sure she settles after the war. So she riffles through the cabinets and drawers until she finds a partially used syringe of morphling. She plunges it into her arm and pushes the trigger down, sinking to the floor with a soft sigh. Peace at last. If she can't have death, she can at least have a temporary relief. Her dark green eyes flicker shut.

Back in the security room, Haymitch abandons his watch and goes down to the hospital. Chrissy's almost-suicide had thrown into light what he had known all along: He wasn't done with her yet. They never had any kind of closure. He enters the hospital and sees her slumped against the cabinets. He picks her up, grimacing under the added weight of her casts and lays her on a nearby hospital bed, gazing at her with bloodshot, dead eyes.

"You cause way too much trouble for your own good," he grunts, and then he leaves. He turns only once, just as he steps out of the room, and looks back at her. His expression doesn't change, and then he shuts the door behind him.

The next day, Plutarch Heavensbee bustles into the hospital.

"Where are Annie and Chrissy? All victors are wanted in the Capitol!" he announces to one of the doctors, who gestures to where Annie sits by Chrissy's bedside, eating breakfast.

And so back to the Capitol they go. Annie begins to panic, seeing the carnage around the City Circle, but Chrissy pats her hand and quietly assures her that Snow is their prisoner, and that they'll be alright. Plutarch stations them around a large wooden table where Beetee, Enobaria Haymitch, Johanna and Peeta are already sitting.

"Hey Peeta," Chrissy says casually, sitting down. "Long time no scream. How's it going?"

He shrugs, playing with a bit of a rubber band. "I'm alive."

"Aren't we all?" she replies conversationally.

And then the Mockingjay enters, and all conversation stops. All the fire she had looks gone. Johanna leans over Beetee and whispers to Chrissy, "Her little sister Prim died in a bombing on Snow's mansion."

"Ah."

"What's this?" Katniss asks.

"We're not sure," Haymitch answers. "It appears to be a gathering of the remaining victors."  
_So all of us are clueless then. Good to know Annie and I aren't the only ones._

"We're all that's left?" she says.

"That's the price of celebrity," Beetee puts in.

After she sits down, Plutarch takes a seat and Coin launches into her spiel.

"Sit down, please, Katniss," Coin says, closing the door. "I've asked you here to settle a debate. Today we will execute Snow. In the previous weeks, hundreds of his accomplices in the oppression of Panem have tried and now await their own deaths. However, the suffering in the districts has been so extreme that these measures appear insufficient to the victims. In fact, many are calling for a complete annihilation of those who held Capitol citizenships. However, in the interest of maintaining a stable population, we cannot afford this."

_Where is she going with this…?_

"So an alternative has been placed on the table. Since my colleagues and I can come to no consensus, it has been agreed that we will let the victors decide. A majority of five will approve the plan. No one may abstain from vote," Coin says. "What has been proposed is that in lieu of eliminating the entire Capitol population, we have a final symbolic Hunger Games, using the children directly related to those who held the most power."

Everyone is staring at her.

"What?" Johanna says.

"We hold another Hunger Games using Capitol children," says Coin.

"Are you joking?" Peeta asks.

They debate for a few minutes on it before Peeta adamantly votes no. Johanna votes yes, unsurprisingly, along with Enobaria. Annie votes no and so does Beetee.

"I vote yes," Chrissy says quietly, her eyes burning. "For everything we've suffered, and for all our family members who've died…let them suffer the same."

"We're down to Katniss and Haymitch," says Coin.

After a long moment, Katniss says, "I vote yes…for Prim."

"Haymitch, it's up to you," Coin says. Immediately, Peeta begins hammering Haymitch with all the reasons why it's wrong to have another Hunger Games, about the atrocities that will be committed.

But he ignores Peeta and says, "I'm with the Mockingjay."

Chrissy and Annie each get a room in the mansion where they prepare for Snow's death later that day. Personally Chrissy doesn't think Katniss has the most claim on Snow's life, but who's she to argue? She puts on her rebel uniform and heads out to the City Circle, making sure she gets a front row view of Snow's killing.

She can actually look into the eyes of the man who murdered her family, tortured her and ripped her lover from her hands. The hate pounds so hard in her ears it drowns everything else out. Her hands twitch with the desire to strangle the life out of Snow, feel his warm blood wet her hands.

_Can you feel this? Can you feel how much I hate you?_

Somewhere behind her, Katniss loads her arrow. There's a moment of silence, and then it goes whizzing overhead, far too high to hit Snow, and lodges in Coin's forehead, sending her toppling over the balcony. The crowd begins to push forward as Snow's terrible laughter fills the air. People swell around Chrissy, pushing past, but she's sure to kick Snow in the gut on the way by. She fights to get back to his post, to be sure he's dead before she lets the crowd push her away, but there's simply too many people. Coin's death means little to her, but Snow's death means everything.


	65. Peace

Later, she takes a walk around the area to catch some news. Apparently Snow died choking on his own blood. _He deserved worse._ But at least he's dead. Sighing, she feels a sort of emptiness now. For so long her fight was with the Capitol. Now it's fallen, and there's a new generation to take care of Panem. What was left for her? She heads through the gardens of Snow's mansion, deep in thought.

"Chrissy?" comes a Capitol-accented, pompous voice. Plutarch.

"Yes?" she responds without turning, her hands clasped behind her back.

"I wanted to talk to you about appearing on my new music TV station," Plutarch says, moving to stand next to her.

Chrissy looks over at Plutarch and raises an eyebrow. "Me?"

"Yes, I was looking at your old Hunger Games tapes…your voice is quite good."

She lets out a long breath. "I don't want to. I just want to be left alone, Plutarch. I'm tired." And it shows. Her eyes look a thousand years old, and heavy with sorrow and troubles. "You're free to use the old tapes Trisha took of me at my house," she says, waving a hand and walking off.

"If you change your mind, give me a call!" Plutarch calls after her. Chrissy nods, but she knows she won't.

She spends several weeks in the Capitol, helping to rebuild. She still treats the Capitol citizens with loathing, but it's more controlled now. She's put in charge of repairs on the major buildings, and she leads well. She grieves for Finnick, for Cooper and Lisa and her mother and father and Farah. She finally lets Farah go. She can almost feel her sister's ghost take leave of the position at her shoulder she's kept up all these years. The rebels' fight is over, and its' time hers was too. She's done the best she could do for her family's memory: She ousted Snow and helped bring down the Capitol. Her work here is done. When she's satisfied with the repairs, she knows what she has to do.

She makes a trip to 9, and visits her sister's grave for the first time since she died. She folds her hands in front of her and stands there for a moment, gathering her thoughts.

"I'm sorry Farah," she begins. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you. That you had to suffer the way you did, and that no one could help you. But it wasn't my fault. It was Snow and the Capitol, and now, because of the war, the districts are free. No one will ever have to fight in the Hunger Games again. I know it's too late for you, and you have to believe me when I say I'd have given my life for yours. But this is the way things turned out. You can be free now, Farah, because everything will be alright. Paylor will look after the Districts, and make sure everything is shared equally. I hope you won't think bad of me for leaving you, but I have to live my life too, or the deaths of the soldiers will be for nothing." By now, tears are welling in her eyes and start to spill over. "You also have to know, Farah, that I love you. I love you so much. You were always my favorite sister, even if I never said it. You taught me something, Farah. And I'm sorry I never repaid you for it. Goodbye, my sister. Sleep well." She presses her three middle fingers against her lips, salty with her tears and holds them out to Farah's grave.

And she turns her back on District 9, and walks away. She knows she won't come back. There's no reason to. She doesn't even go to get her guitar. It belongs to another, lonelier, more lost time of her life. Once it was the only thing that kept her going. Now she can do that on her own.

Instead, she flies out to District 12. She has unfinished business. She leaves early in the morning and lands in 12 in the afternoon. Summer sunlight filters through the trees, illuminating the projects going on in the remains of the town. Chrissy walks through these, dressed in her typical army green cargo pants and a black shirt. She picks her way down the Victor's Village, in no real hurry. There's one house with geese outside, which Chrissy takes to mean it one of the two occupied houses in the village.

She takes a deep breath and walks up the front steps. The door is open and she can see Haymitch sitting at the kitchen table. Leaning in the doorframe she gathers her thoughts. He muse sense her presence, because he turns. But there's no hostility in his eyes. They're uncertain, much the way she imagines her own to be. He doesn't speak, or move to greet her. This is the way it's been all these years; both of them afraid to make the first move to peace. She lets out her breath, and offers a sort of smile, which could also be mistaken for a nervous twitch.

"Hey."

A slight smile quirks the corner of Haymitch's mouth.

"Hey."

The End

* * *

So, here we are, at the end of Chrissy's story. It almost makes me sad, I've been working with her for so long...a great big applause to all you readers, and to the wonderful series by Suzanne Collins, and let's hear it for Chrissy too! After all, she had to put up with my twisted imagination!


	66. Epilogue

Epilogue

Haymitch and I never did get married. But we did stay friends. And a little more than that too. We considered leaving 12, but after Annie moved in with her newborn son, I couldn't bear to go. I'd be a terrible mother, I know that, but I do enjoy spending time with Tyson. And I know Haymitch wants to be near Katniss and Peeta. I understand that. Maybe that's why we seemed to be fated to end up with each other. I like to say it's because we're the only ones who can put up with each other, but maybe it's just that we understand each other. I'm sure you're all curious if Haymitch ever stopped drinking. Well, you're dumbass if you think that was ever going to happen. He does drink less, because otherwise I told Annie not to let him near Tyson. And so life settled into something like normal. People returned to 12. A school was built. Katniss had a baby. Life went on, and eventually the new life grew to cover the scars of the old world. It was something we would never forget, but the next generation would never know the pain of the Hunger Games. They would never suffer to lose their children or lives without reason. And on that note, I consider my life worthwhile, because I got to help make Panem a free country.


End file.
